This month has been my favourite so far it felt like a breath of fresh air. After a very difficult November, I was offered a role at Exhibition hub working their new 7 Wonders of the World immersive experience. My official job role being ‘Guest Assistant’, I worked across box office, gift shop, cloakroom, VR and gallery attending. This meant that there was lots of opportunity to move across different responsibilities and interact with a wide range of visitors. Alongside this I continued my internship at Bang all while still applying to other opportunities. I had an interview with a company called HERE design which I wasn’t successful in.
Moving into a paid role after a long time of being unpaid made a noticeable difference. It honestly made me feel more valued and sort after. I was starting to rethink if I would do unpaid work again. I am very grateful for all the work experience I have had to date but working unpaid for a long period of time isn’t feasible in this economy.
While working at the gallery I noticed that I naturally paid attention to how people moved around the space and interacted with the visuals. Maybe I was looking subconsciously from the perspective of a curator, I was using this time to gain some tips and tricks for myself. I’m used to thinking how images and artwork are seen but this has now extended to how people experience environments.
During my shift, my manager Chris told me that “I picked things up quickly”. At first, I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not because he had that kind of sarcastic personality, but he wasn’t. That stayed with me, especially as I often overthought if I was doing the right things and using my initiative correctly.
One of the main challenges I faced this month was balancing my new gallery job while still fulfilling my commitment to Bang. At times it did feel quite full on not having two days at the same place. This lack of routine initially did overwhelm me and I am someone who thrives off of consistency. I dealt with this by becoming more organised and buying a physical planner to I could visually see what I’m doing when. Using a planner helped me to prioritise the tasks which I had to complete. Being more intentional with my time helped me to stay on top of things and gave me a greater sense of control over my time. I also started to input my schedule into my phone calendar, I set up reminders so that I had time to mentally prepare what I was doing the following days. This experience made me realise how important it is to be organised. Working in this way also helped to free up space in my mind, something I will definitely carry forward to my final year.
I was also still applying for other opportunities and had an interview with HERE. This was for a 6-week open internship opportunity. I wasn’t successful which was disappointing, but I noticed that I handled this no a lot better compared to the beginning of my DPS journey. I was less affected by the outcome and more focused on getting more interview experience.
Although I wasn’t selected, I received such positive feedback that it reinforced that rejection is just redirection. The interviewers mentioned they were “really impressed” by my zine that I made for a 2nd year final project and acknowledged that I have an eye for design and photography.
This gave me a great sense of stability, relief and motivation to carry on. I began to value the feedback and experience gained through the interview process more than the outcome which is a big step from where I started in September. They also connected me with another photographer in the industry which was very nice of them.