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Hey there, my name is Viv and I am an illustrator and graphic designer. I’m currently working on my BA of Design in Visual Communication and BCII at UTS. Although Australia is not planning to re-open international travel for a while, we should still keep planning our future and I would highly recommend any students or recent grads to consider doing an international internship in 2021 or 2022. 

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“My New York internship has given me a step in the creative industry far earlier than I would have ever imagined.”

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Vivian and the Spring Studios crew

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My New York internship has given me a step in the creative industry far earlier than I would have ever imagined. The ArtBound Initiative program catered to my goals of wanting to figure out who I was as a designer. They helped make the integration — visa, portfolio and resume workshops, and interview training — as seamless as possible. As a result, I was placed with a creative agency called Spring Studios.

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“I was responsible for concept designing campaigns and identity rebrands for large clients such as Estée Lauder and Hilton.”

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Estee Lauder campaign by Spring Studios

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Located in the heart of Soho, Spring Studios New York is a global creative agency that not only works with renowned names, but challenges the way design can communicate a brand. As a Graphic Design Intern, I felt extremely intimidated, yet excited, to be working at such a renowned and fast-paced agency like Spring Studios. Though, having this unimaginable opportunity encouraged me to speak up with my ideas and ask questions, which led to the team basically treating me as a Junior Designer. Initially, I spent the first two weeks looking over past projects and their brand guideline to gauge the type of work and style Spring brought to the table. An important part of this process was the ability to be adaptable, which was crucial for me to accelerate. As I updated Spring’s brand guideline and curated client case studies for team presentations, I was able to impress not only the team but myself, realising what I was capable of doing if I just put my mind to it. As a result, they onboarded me to design concepts for large clients such as Estée Lauder and Hilton, which required multiple rounds of heavy research, concept boards, artwork mockups, and presentations to the clients themselves. This responsibility definitely overwhelmed me, particularly with the fear of failure and embarrassment. Though, I had the privilege of being mentored by highly experienced and talented people in the team (Design Leads, Senior Designers, Project Managers, and Strategists) to reassure my quality of work and process was beyond acceptable. It was this mentorship, opportunity to sit in on team and client meetings and trust every day that really built my confidence and capabilities as a designer, as well as deeper interests in branding and collaborative design.

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Spring Studios Office in New York

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Particularly in New York, the hustle really is worth working towards because not only can you prove your value to your team, but also to yourself.

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“ArtBound Initiative helped connect me with an internship opportunity that I would’ve never been able to gain this early on in my career.”

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ArtBound Initiative gave me the opportunity to form a network that helped to push my professional aspirations and create meaningful friendships. They helped connect me with an internship opportunity that I would have never been able to gain this early on in my career. Through this internship, I’ve been able to answer questions about what I want to achieve and learn, which is an invaluable experience for anyone to go through.  

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ArtBound Initiative crew at the Yayoi Kusuma exhibition

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Since coming back to Sydney, I’ve had the opportunity to start freelancing for a brand agency that challenges my type and layout skills. Having my confidence grow throughout my time in New York both by practising my networking skills and communicating concept pitches, I stopped feeling doubtful of my capabilities and started to truly believe the work that I did was acceptable, which helped me land this gig so smoothly. On top of that, currently in my last year of BCII, there is a subject that offers student placements with industry partners based on your interests. From this, I was placed with PwC as a Design and Innovation intern. Although not everyone studies BCII, there are still internships that students can apply for at CareerHub or speaking to your subject coordinator, who can help advise you take that next step if you take the time to establish what you want to gain, why you want to work with the company, building your portfolio, and know what you can bring to the table. Again, I honestly did not have this confidence prior to my 4-month creative internship; without the coaching from ArtBound Initiative, I would still be sitting in a deep pool of self-doubt as a creative junior.

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Now in my final semester of university, my journey this year has been focusing on what I like and don’t like to do as a designer. I’ve strived to form networks by taking opportunities even from the most unexpected people to take on different challenges in the pursuit of developing my passion further. 

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“Doing internships will allow you to refine your career goals and will help you tremendously to kickstart your creative career.”

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If you’re not able to intern abroad, the ArtBound Initiative internship program recently launched in Sydney and Melbourne and are currently accepting applications! Whether you join an internship program like ArtBound Initiative or not, doing internships will help you tremendously to kickstart your creative career and develop an understanding of your own style, goals, and path towards your passion. 

The post How my internship in New York impacted my creative career appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

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The definition of luxury is the Savoy Hotel. Every whim, request, and secret are accounted for inside the walls of the Savoy Hotel. This book exposes the life of the D’Oyly family from the start to the end. The reader is gifted with an exclusive experience of seeing behind the curtain of the magic that was piled into the foundations holding the hotel up. As always, needs are met with an abundance of information, characters, and juicy gossip.

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The Secret Life of the Savoy isn’t your average rinse and repeat history lecture about the grand hotel, instead, Williams favours the story of its creators, choosing details for the explicit purpose of surprising and intriguing the reader. There are connections that most of us have no idea were even there. The best example is the turbulent relationship/partnership between Gilbert and Sullivan and the founder of the Savoy Theatre and Hotel, impresario Richard Carte D’Oyly.

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This book is a true deep dive into the tremendous lives of the D’Oyly family. At times the writing lacks a certain lightness, offering facts and connects, but sometimes moving on at a pace that doesn’t allow the reader to form a connection with any of history’s characters such as Gilbert and Sullivan. However, if you don’t mind that and the heavy load of information, this book is certainly a nice one to sit back with and soak your mind with knowledge and luxury. I recommend a nice glass of wine to accompany the sitting with. 

The post The Secret Life of the Savoy: and the D’Oyly Carte Family by Olivia Williams | Review appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

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We are the Western world — drowning in privilege, but blindly walking forward to scrounge for more, dressed in the latest labels. Fast fashion is a by-product of this. Perfectionism is a result of this. Consumerism is the mother-feeding-tube making us feel ‘not enough’, so we spend more. But as we buy more, search for more, spend more, ultimately we end up feeling less.  

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We want everything now. We want more, more, more. We are a greedy species. We are intrinsically hungry. But for what?

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I doubt many young people feel confident as they are. This breaks my heart. It’s frustrating and exhausting. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how many hours we spend at the gym, how beautiful our hair, and ‘snatched’ our makeup is, how curated our online lives are — we are living  in this environment of disposable culture. The acknowledgment of it all is not enough. We need change.

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Your changes don’t have to be huge to begin with — think on a microcosmic level. I started by avoiding fast-fashion ‘sales’ and supporting local clothing brands I found through Instagram or local markets. It’s more fun to wear something that a small handful of people own anyway! If you are unaware where your fashion/makeup/technology products are manufactured, how they are made, and who profits from them — I encourage you to do some digging into this. Don’t hesitate to ask these questions, remember knowledge is empowering and can lead to change, even if it’s on a personal level. Of course, none of us can be perfect consumers, but it does help to be informed. If a brand is operating from an ethical standpoint, they will most likely openly advocate this and be transparent with their processes. If they don’t, do the math. 

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It’s easy to lose sight of the human impact of fast-fashion. We can read statistics and news articles but until it affects us, it’s hard to relate. The first major garment factory disaster occurred in New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911 and as a result, 146 garment workers died, many  were young, female immigrants — probably the same age as you and I. Over 100 years later, history was repeated as the Rana Plaza clothing manufacturing complex in Bangladesh collapsed. This time though, over 1000 workers were killed. It seems that even human life sometimes is not enough to challenge the systemic culture of fast-fashion. 

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I challenge you to think about the cost you pay for clothing. The average manufacturing cost of a basic tee is approximately $7.25, which will be later sold for around $25. Workers in Bangladesh earn a mere forty-three cents per hour. And yet, the turnover in the garment industry in Australia alone was $27 billion last year. This just doesn’t seem to add up, does it?

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I know it’s a stretch to say we should be making our own clothes or buy exclusively from local/market brands, but hopefully, this makes you think twice about that bulk-online sale order, or that half-price tee that you ‘reaaally’ need. There are so many freelance artists selling their art on t-shirts or brands that donate to charity that would benefit from the money instead. If certain big-name websites and brands are coming to mind, you’re probably right, they aren’t ethical. 

(Figures from Oxfam – What She Makes, 2018) 

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What does ‘ethical’ and ‘sustainable’ even mean?

It’s important to educate ourselves on the real difference individuals can make. The money we spend on local business and small brands all contributes to supporting a family’s livelihood or an individual’s dream. You vote with your dollar. The fashion industry is the second most destructive industry to the environment (after livestock). So, buying and repurposing second-hand clothing should not be optional, it should be the norm. We live on a planet of finite resources, and too often are caught up in throwing things away for something newer and better — even though they work perfectly fine as they are. Check out Depop and Facebook Marketplace along with some great second-hand vintage stores on Instagram for your next outfit. I found some fab vintage jeans and barely-worn PE Nation activewear (Aussie brand) on Depop for less than half of what they are brand new. Better yet,  get together with a group of friends to do a big wardrobe clear out and swap clothes — my cousin and I do this all the time. 

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Real cultural change is gradual and slow, but we must stay vigilant — in how we speak about ourselves and others, with what we consume and with how we spend our money. Our brains are sponges to the subtlest of messages. I do, however, feel optimistic that younger generations are becoming more aware of the pressures of social media and disposable culture (although part of me is nervous to see this play out over the following years). I know that we can be a force for change and I know that we can make informed, nourishing choices. Daily, small steps count — we are all cogs in the machine. 

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So what do we do?

If we’re lucky, things can be recycled and made new again. Even melted down plastic remains.  Hopefully, it can be of purpose to someone else. It can be rebirthed. My hope is that our mindsets, our way of living, can be redesigned, repurposed. We don’t have to begin again, we just need to reassess and instead of throwing away,  let’s bring it to life.

The post Putting the Brakes on Fast-Fashion appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

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In the last five years, BTS has skyrocketed fromK-pop underdogs to global superstars. The group debuted in 2013 with seven members: RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook. From handing out free concert tickets to amassing a Twitter following of 27.7 million at the date of writing, these seven South Korean men have undoubtedly made their mark on the world. But stepping back from the glamour and the music and the sold-out stadium tours, what exactly makes a BTS stan, or ARMY, tick? I’m giving you an up-close and personal chat with one of them: me.

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First, a bit of background information on BTS themselves. Bangtan Sonyeon-dan are under the Korean entertainment agency of Bighit Entertainment, a smaller company than the more well known SM, JYP, and YG Entertainment.  This is, in part, what made their rise so shocking to the general population, as well as successful; everyone loves an underdog. They have released nineteen Korean and Japanese albums, EPs, and compilation albums, each one containing a different message and a plethora of genres that include loving tributes from the band to their fans. With iconic phrases such as “I purple you”, coined by Kim Taehyung (V), and their inter-active use of social media platforms such as Twitter, BTS is accessible and popular to their millions of fans. In fact, BTS contributed a whopping $4.65 billion to the South Korean GDP in 2019 alone. It comes as no surprise that they were awarded the South Korean Cultural Merit Award in 2018 for their work. BTS are undoubtably a part of the Korean cultural wave that’s been lapping at the shores of Western culture since the early 2000s, but part of their fan appeal is the flawed humanity of the members in an industry of manufactured, exploited idols. With their own variety shows (RUN! BTS, Bon Voyage) and a number of movies and documentaries that explore the intensity of a world tour and its harrowing impact on the members, BTS have gone to painful extremes to deliver their music and the behind-the-scenes of their journey to the world.

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That’s not to say that BTS’s music is completely removed from K-pop norms – far from it. But BTS have worked hard to create their own name and global brand, with collabor-ations across the music industry, fashion world, and even with UNICEF. Beginning with their Love Myself campaign, which advocated for ending global violence against child-ren, BTS’s leader Kim Namjoon, or RM, gave a speech at UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited campaign, throwing BTS onto the global political stage and distinguishing themselves from the idea of being just another boyband.

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Being a BTS stan is to be one amongst millions. But despite the idea of fandom being around for decades, influencing both individual lives and the course of history, perceptions of fans, and especially K-pop stans, are simplistic and un-nervingly negative. From the pervasive and comparatively innocent assumption that most K-pop stans are manic teenagers obsessed with various celebrities of assorted talents that they will probably never meet, to the frankly ridiculous description of ‘radical protestors’ after K-pop stans ruined a Trump rally in Tulsa, fans of K-pop have been subjected to a lot of unnecessary hate. While some criticisms ring true, such as the existence of female stalker fans, sasaengs, broad generalisations have given K-pop a pretty bad reputation.

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Now, having been well and truly immersed into the world of K-pop Twitter, I know that most stereotypes are untrue. Plenty of fans are not teenagers. In fact, I see constant tweets of BTS fans saying that they just got accepted into law school, just got a promotion, just had their first child, or taught their kids the choreography of a new BTS song while in lockdown. 

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BTS fans come from all walks of life.

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They are like you, like me, like teenage girls infatuated with their first boyband and like adults, finding a safe space to express their love for BTS’s music. I’ll be the first to admit that I used to look down on K-pop with similar disdain, back when I was a high schooler surrounded by people with the same opinions. It just goes to show how much we are a product of our environment; as soon as I graduated, I fell headfirst down the rabbit hole of the BTS fandom. To be fair, I was largely influenced by two of my best friends, but despite my newfound appreciation for BTS: music, performances, and genuine talent, there was a constant niggling sensation in the back of my mind that made me keep this passion a secret. 

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Unlike many other fans, who can pinpoint the exact date they became a stan, I fell into their music slowly, then all at once. I was beginning a strange new episode of my life called university. My life had split into two distinct categories: the reality of studying full time, working, and navigating new social circles, and the safety of listening to BTS music, learning the meanings behind the Korean lyrics, and unravelling the storylines behind their music videos. 

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For a long time, only my best friends from high school knew that I liked BTS – not even my family were aware, and certainly not the tentative new friendships I had formed with my university friends. I was so afraid of being classed as the manic teenage fan and of not being taken seriously. Perhaps, I was afraid that people would take my safe space and comfort and turn it into the worst and weakest part of me.

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Why was it such a big deal anyway, to love this group and this music and find comfort in it? 

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People did the same with sports teams all the time. Now, I realise that it may not even have been the industry or the groups or the manufactured music that people criticised. Maybe it was just the teenage girls.

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There’s a funny anecdote that almost every K-pop fan can attest to. I just wanted to learn their names, you always start. In the beginning, their changing hair colours and fashion styles and even eye colours are confusing. Distinguishing their individual quirks and traits is the first step. The second is identifying their individual voices. The third is making a Twitter stan account. The rest is history.

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There is a strange, distinct comfort of meeting someone who likes the same group as you. It’s almost a meme, to put a small symbol of that group on your clothes, on your phone, your laptop background, and seeing who notices and knows. There is a moment when you lock eyes and see the symbol or the word or the photo and you think, ah. I know you. Whether it’s a stranger on Twitter or on the street, you know that you can be yourself and not be judged for liking a particular brand of music.

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I’ve made online friendships based on a mutual love of BTS that have lasted longer than relationships I’ve had in real life. Two of my good friends live in England. I’ve never met them in real life but, for a period of time, spoke to them every single day. We started off talking about BTS. We told each other who our biases (favourite members of the group) were. We analysed their lyrics and videos together. Then we sent each other birthday cards. We video-called. We told each other about our lives and our dreams and I found people halfway across the world who knew me better than some people I saw in class every week. Now, we speak to each other less and talk about BTS less. But we still send each other birthday cards.

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It’s been almost three years since I first clicked onto one of their music videos. 

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Now, I don’t immediately go on Twitter when they post a new photo, I don’t stay up till twelve a.m. Korean Standard Time waiting for an announcement that might not actually happen and I don’t listen exclusively to their music. I don’t track how many #1’s their new album gets on iTunes. I don’t stream their music videos on the day they are released. I have stopped following them almost religiously. 

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But something that BTS fans believe is that you find BTS when you need their message the most, whether that be about telling capitalism to fuck off, learning how to love yourself, or finding your own dreams and way in life. At the end of 2017, BTS had just released their new album, Love Yourself: Her, and that was when my mental health had taken a nosedive three years in the making. I cannot say that BTS saved my life, because that’s not quite true and is much more dramatic than I’m accustomed to being. 

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But there is a reason that music therapy exists; BTS’s music threw me a lifeline and a distraction and a hug all in one. 

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It was a reminder to keep living at a time when I didn’t want to, a reminder to reach out to friends and find people in my life who would love me despite everything and not judge me. Even though I no longer watch their music show performances and every single episode of their variety show, being a BTS ARMY has changed my personality in more ways than one.

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Now, at the tender age of 20, all the people I love most know about how important that group has been to me. Because I am not in the habit of befriending people who are assholes, being a BTS stan is just another one of my hobbies to them. Some people will still laugh at me; they will ask me why I spent my time and money on something so trivial. 

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But BTS’s music was a soundtrack to my life at some of its best and worst moments, so I will be both unapologetic and unrepentant.

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In saying all this, some perceptions of BTS fans have been true for me. There was that time when two of my friends and I learnt the chorus choreography of “Blood, Sweat and Tears” while drunk at two a.m. Another time, when my best friend and I were in Korea, we definitely lined up and went to the House of BTS, a pop-up merch store, just to take photos and spend an inordinate amount of money. I admit that my mother lamented the loss of my hard-earned income over the multiple albums of ‘those Korean boys’. However, in life, I have learnt to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. In this case, I will ask for neither.

The post Being a BTS fan in 2020 appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

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Content Warning: Self-Esteem

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I have a problem, but I don’t know where to start. 

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We are scavengers, hunters…. always hungry for the next meal. 

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I believe society’s constant push towards ‘bigger and better’ is inextricably linked to fast-fashion culture, consumerism and the forever unfulfilled drive for perfectionism in the developed world. 

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You are twelve and it begins. You are conditioned to never quite feel… enough. Insecurity has subtle tendrils that have crawled into the television commercials we watch and the music we listen to. Beautiful women wear the most beautiful clothes, drive beautiful new cars, and marry beautiful people — this is being successful. But, you don’t feel like that. So many industries thrive off your insecurities, that your image doesn’t mirror the one you are shown.  

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You are sixteen. This weekend you’re going to a party. It would be unthinkable to attend in an outfit already posted online —so you’ll need to buy another. And when you snap a pic of that dress, the one you spent a week’s wages on, it can go on the pile of dusty clothes at the back of your wardrobe. 

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You want to be more, feel more —so you buy makeup and the latest trends, and chase the fallacy of instant gratification. The likes stack up and the validation is solid. But one week passes, and another month, and then the new clothes don’t make you feel good anymore. And the makeup doesn’t cover the deep, lacking self-worth — so you buy more, you change more. 

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You grow up. Is twenty-two years-old too young for Botox? Surely surgery isn’t too big of a step? Youtubers are doing it. If you fix that ‘one thing’ you will finally feel good about yourself! But the hamster wheel is now spinning, and it’s too hard to jump off. Goods are pumped out —60% off sales, free shipping, $10 off when you sign up. You can buy clothes online and have them in your hands three days later, all the way from India. Still warm.

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The landfill in your heart is stacking up. 

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Good morning. You are twenty-five and a slave to perfectionism. The shackles are tight. Today you need to be the most attractive version of yourself. In fact, you need to be the best version, every day.  You look in the mirror but aren’t satisfied — the filter which used to smooth your skin and make you feel better,seems broken. It’s been three months since you splashed out on the latest iPhone, but you don’t own the newest version anymore. You stand on the edge of the rabbit hole — facetune editing, viral trends, an item of clothing that costs 100 times the labour price. 

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And you fall in.

The post Don’t Look So Trashy appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

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Content Warning: Discrimination

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In the world of gastronomy, from everyday food to fine dining, Asian cuisines get the short end of the stick. It seems that all there is to Asian food is cheap Chinese takeaway, cheaper Vietnamese Báhn-Mì’s, even more bang-for-your-buck Thai food, or sushi rolls if you’re feeling a bit more fancy. Regardless, Asian food is food that most people can buy without checking their bank balances.

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Now we hit our first problem: the societal norm to amalgamate Asian cuisine into one great big melting pot, as if it was void of nuance and complexity. While we all understand Italian cuisine as vastly different from French cuisine, the Western eye seems set on generalising all Asian cuisines as an ambiguous mix of soy sauce, honey, ginger, and chilli. And while people are willing to pay upwards of thirty dollars for pasta, they wouldn’t dare pay the same amount for noodles. This begs the question: is there a double standard at play?

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Why is it so cheap?

Let’s wind back the clock to when early Asian immigrants set up shop in a white-dominated restaurant market. The first generations of Asian-Australian restaurants fought to survive within an insular and racist society — hello White Australia policy and ‘yellow peril’ propaganda. The restaurants were made to adapt to the non-Asian palate. Like its American counterparts, it evolved in the only space it could exist: cheap Asian food, a one-stop shop to buy a cacophony of fried rice, sizzling beef, and orange chicken, all for ten dollars. Despite newer generations of Asian restaurants challenging the cheap-Asian-food/expensive-Western-cuisine binary, its remnants still subsist in the popular imagination. 

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Cheap = Unrefined? An Orientalist Narrative

The 2020 season of MasterChef Australia has been lauded for its inclusion of Asian cuisine. Yet, something that did not stick well with me and many people in the Asian community was MasterChef’s new judge, Jock Zonfrillo, and his comment that, “Asian food doesn’t lend itself to fine dining”. Zonfrillo’s comment echoes a Eurocentric elitism that permeates the larger Australian society. It embodies an Orientalist ideology, in which Western societies hailing from Europe are depicted to be culturally superior to the ‘primitive East’ — a perspective, which has persisted since European imperialism and colonial regimes. 

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While modern-day Australia has attempted to deconstruct this presumed superiority, we see it covertly living on through the inaccurate presumption of Asian food being unrefined because it is quick and cheap. Despite the millennia of refinement behind each Asian cuisine and its staple ingredients, it continues to be disregarded, since it is different to what high-quality western food entails (take the French-originated Michelin guides, as a notable example). The Eurocentrism within the definition of ‘high-quality’ food becomes even stickier when we consider the increase of Asian-fusion fine-dining restaurants, in which the Western/white influence on traditional Asian cuisines suddenly makes it refined. This trend of Westernisation embodies the larger problem of Orientalism within Australian and other Western societies, in which traditional ethnic cultures are still seen as less developed and that the best trajectory for its progression is to follow the ideals of Western civilisation. 

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Bubble Tea, Mochi, and Honouring Cultural Heritage

While the ‘mainstreaming’ of Asian food products is great for cultural recognition, the fact that mainstreaming entails popularity within a Western-dominant society poses problems. When non-Asian businesses recreate an Asian product while failing to honour and respect its cultural heritage, it does become offensive to the previous generations of Asian restauranteering, who had to work tirelessly to sustain themselves within a Eurocentric market.

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Let’s take a look at a newer food trend: bubble tea, which emerged from a niche Asian buyer market onto the mainstream international stage within the past few years. In 2020, a Canadian bubble tea store in Montréal, which marketed its bubble tea with the slogan ‘nofakeshit’. Under the guise of being ‘healthier’ and improved, the slogan ‘nofakeshit’ presents the idea that traditional Asian bubble tea uses substandard ingredients and that, by way of its Westernisation, is inherently better for you. This echoes the Orientalist perspective shown in fine-dining cuisine and its fixation with Asian fusions. 

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A better case is the ‘mainstreaming’ of Japanese mochi. This is partially thanks to its frequent appearance in ASMR YouTube videos. It has even found its way into the European and British supermarket chains through the new business ‘Little Moons’, which is founded by two Asian siblings from the UK. The product marketing respectfully recognises the traditional Japanese heritage of mochi, and instead of using a crassly designed slogan, Little Moons presents itself as healthy in terms of its low-calorie content and vegan friendliness. Yet the minimal Scandi packaging of Little Moons does suggest a whitewashing for its Western audience. This reveals a continuing strain between recognising traditional heritage and the existing cultural markers of difference that are still unappealing to non-Asian audiences. 

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An Important Elimination

This is not just a discussion of food but a conversation about valuing cultures as equal and viewing each culture as nuanced. The solution is clear: recognise the Orientalist biases that we, as a society, have internalised, and take conscious steps to unlearn them. Understand that a bowl of Vietnamese pho involves as much skill and refinement as a French cheese soufflé. If you’re willing to pay twenty bucks for an Aperol spritz, you should expect to pay more than just fifteen dollars for a meal at an Asian restaurant.

The post Dirt Cheap Asian Food and the Orientalist Narrative appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

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Content Warning: Ableism

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Yes, I was born deaf.

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No, it doesn’t run in my family. No, I don’t know sign language. I am simply deaf. And being deaf means: 

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Coming second at the swimming carnivals because the teacher would be slow in tapping your shoulder when the gun goes off.

Feeling isolated and alone sitting in a sea of other students during assembly, boiling with rage, desperation, and defeat when everyone laughs at a principal’s joke you couldn’t hear.

Being an expert in the deaf nod, and knowing exactly when to agree because you have been reading body language since you were a child.

Struggling severely during COVID-19 because face masks obscure the lips you read. 

Finding out that you hear with the level of someone with a mild hearing loss, even with your cochlear implants.

Realising hearing people have some 12,000 hair cells that also help them balance, and remembering that awful time in PE when you couldn’t walk across the beam because your hearing loss affects your equilibrium.

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I hear sound through twenty-two electrodes in my cochlear implant, in a small incision behind my ear. The scar has now faded.

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I hear sound through body language: the way someone mirrors my movements or doesn’t, their tone of voice, the way they are sitting or standing.

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I sense sound through the way the crowd turns their head towards the source.

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I see sound through the jolt in someone’s body, the arched eyebrows that signify shock or horror.

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I read sound in the way my brain creates the whisper of ‘wind rustling’ in the subtitles — even as I hear nothing.

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I feel sound when someone taps my shoulder after I don’t respond to them shouting my name over three times. 

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I am hearing-impaired.

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And I am frustrated when people don’t repeat themselves — you wouldn’t understand how your twenty second recap of what just happened can make me feel so included.

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I do hear sound — but I rely on so much more than my ears.

The post How I Hear appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

Artwork: April Jiang | @aprildsign

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Content Warning: Drugs, Alcohol

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My period has come again. 

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I find it hard to sleep at night knowing I have nothing to wake up for. 

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We watch apocalypse movies for the irony but my dreams are terrifying; I wake stiff and sweaty. 

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It’s bin night again. I get stoned, and then drunk, and then stoned again. Our washing gets crusty on the line, no reason to bring it inside. My boyfriend and I rotate between three pairs of tracksuit pants, forgetting who originally owned which. It’s time to buy another case of beers. 

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This time a year ago I was too busy to make time for myself. 

Swings and roundabouts, hey? 

I should be writing with all this spare time. I should be on exchange in Europe right now. Grand plans of deep-cleaning my grotty sharehouse and implementing an at-home exercise routine, are pushed back and back. I’ll do it tomorrow has never been an easier excuse. 

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Conversations with friends become monotonous and repetitive. The Office is still rotating on the lounge room TV. 

Didn’t we watch this episode last week? 

I count down the hours on a Friday until the new episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine has aired in the States. This week, I discovered I’d already watched the final episode of the season last week. 

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Devastating.

The post COVID-19 Sharehouse Musings appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

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Content Warning: Depression, Suicide Ideation

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A week into isolation, the symptoms showed.

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At first, it wasn’t much. Lethargy, increased appetite. A gnawing, tightening ache in my chest that gave way to numbness. Loss of interest. Loss of friends. The burden of a restless brain and a brainless body. Andrew Solomon defined it best: “The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality.” 

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And I was losing my life.

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I don’t want to appear self-serving, or tone deaf; as the world approaches the crest of a second wave, it is more important than ever to be vigilant for our physical health. People are dying, and I won’t diminish that. But I won’t diminish depression, either. 

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As I was a veteran to mental health by the time of quarantine, I knew what to look for. Everyone has their metaphor, and mine is ‘the hole’. Abyssal, lonely, dark. I’d never yet reached the bottom, but I had always fallen deep enough to lose the light. This was a chasm I knew intimately. And my symptoms were textbook. 

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Depression is both much too much and far too little. Too much aloneness, too much food, too much sleep, and yet also not enough sleep, not enough food, not enough aloneness. A week into isolation, I began the hellish oscillation, as if flirting with falling headlong into the hole. 

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I initially laughed it off, like many at the time, because a lifetime of mental illness had seemingly prepared me for the mundanity of quarantine. What do you do in your room all day? Anyone who’s suffered depression could tell you. And when I couldn’t laugh it off, I relied on the scientists.

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Researchers have long drawn parallels between grief and depression; in truth, the symptoms overlap so much that fine lines and semantics (and often, mere medical opinion) separate what is normal and expected from what is aberrant. Both are tedious, oppressive, pervasive. Both are a slow, agonising, living death. 

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Like all, I grieved what the pandemic had taken. Lives, normality, freedom, safety. Grief was expected. My therapist even mentioned the same was true of my depression — though this was not as acceptable to me. I was merely mourning, same as the rest. The symptoms overlap, you know, I declared to a professional with a PhD. 

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And so despite my textbook symptoms, and the familiarity of the hole I was falling into, I told myself I would climb out — and soon. I would rally. I would push hard. Shame, after all, is a powerful motivator.

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But all this resistance brought me was one of the worst suicidal depressions of my life — and a revelation.

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The revelation began, as all do, as a brief logic. As if my mind had done the math and produced a dissatisfying answer. When you are depressed and everything is much too much, there is much too much time to think, and my mind kept catching on this answer, which grew and grew in me as I dwelled on it, over and over. So, I sought to bury it. More computer, more food, more isolation. Numb with analgesia.

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The world was imploding. Nobody was reliable because everyone was reeling, and there was a collective dying of tangible connection. Media feeds were flooded with confessions from quarantine and the horrors of the front lines. We’re grieving. We’re falling. We feel this way, too.

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I resented their honesty. The overdue solidarity. It was as if they had co-opted a disability I had been steeped in and shamed for my whole life. They couldn’t all be depressed, I averred. But the disaster worsened, the hole darkened, and I retreated into heavier numbness, till my days were lost in a fugue.

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Eventually, I clung to my rage, as if anger was something, anything to hold onto — as if anger was preferable, at least, to the heaviness. But the walls of the hole still rose around me, and once caught in its gravity, I fell. Down, down, and down — deeper than I had ever fallen before. Until finally, broken at the bottom, I admitted the truth out loud, over the phone, to someone paid to listen.

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The revelation was this: depression was supposed to be my fault. All the episodes before had the explanation of me. I was the only common denominator. I had not properly braced for trauma. I had not sought help sooner, had not eaten right, or exercised, or socialised enough. I had driven myself insane from lack of sleep. These weren’t just symptoms, I believed, but causes. They had to be.

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Because if they were just symptoms, doled out by the contagion of circumstance, then depression was not in any way a character flaw, or cerebral malfunction, or genetic curse, or even something that could even be fully avoided or braced for. Depression was a normal reaction from a cornered, frightened animal. Depression was the mind’s maladaptation to a loss of connection. Given the utter implosion of the world, my depression made a sickening sort of sense. Depression was expected. 

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Depression was…natural.

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And this revelation made me feel powerless. I had always, deep down, clung to the fantasy of control. I had thrown myself headlong into the hole; I had never once been pushed in. When depression was my fault, I knew whom to punish and blame. My own mistakes. My own unworthiness. I would spend hours abusing myself, then have the audacity to wonder why I felt sore. But this agony was acceptable, because the revelation was unacceptable.

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The revelation revealed, if anything, the extent of my vulnerability. If depression was reactive to life circumstances, and not something to be controlled, or dismissed as medical bad luck for a miserable few — then depression could happen to anyone. Merciless, arbitrary. A fact of life. Like how the body feels drained without proper nourishment, or the way the heart races from caffeine. But even then, I reasoned: you ingest the caffeine, you nourish the body. You have control. But I wasn’t in control.

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I had been in a good place pre-pandemic; I had been practicing my best life, doing everything right. Sleep, food, exercise, friends — but then the world imploded, and everything became much too much despite all my experience and all my good practice. If depression was truly my fault, then I should not have been depressed — and yet I was losing my life.

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I had been pushed in.

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It’s important to be kind and empathetic with yourself in those moments, when you’re broken at the bottom. I would not shame a widow for grieving her partner; why would I shame myself for, in the words of Johann Hari, ‘grieving’ disconnection? 

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If depression and grief overlap, then they do so for very sound psychological reasons, Hari argues. I had many lifelong, ill-gotten griefs by the calamities of 2020. Complex, inherited traumas, the lonely stresses of my adult existence, an insecure future — I had reasons to mourn normality. These were risk-factors that positioned me closer to the edge; the pandemic had merely been the concussive push back. Nothing could have prevented gravity. This time, there was no explanation of ‘me’.

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Depression was not my fault.

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I’m better, now. I’ve emerged from the hole battered and spitting blood — a little weaker for now, but stronger in the long-run. As is often the case with ‘tortured’ artists, there’s the expectation that in this emergence, I will make meaning out of my pain. As if mental illness is the due we all pay for artistic renaissance and credibility. 

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This is bullshit. I would write even if I had no pain to write about; writing is who I am and always will be. Making meaning out of my pain does not mean the pain was worth it, because that implies a price, a culpability, and the worst kind of expectation. 

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I did not deserve my depression. I would not wish upon anyone the lonely, paralysing, dehumanising, abject terror of suicidal thoughts. But I endured them both. And if I can make any meaning out of my pain, for my own healing and for others, it would be in sharing this whole-hearted revelation. 

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Depression is not our fault. We are vulnerable creatures, hard-wired for survival. We flee from threats and reel from the consequences of all manner of ruthless, random assaults on our person — even emotional ones. Even ones that merely confine us to our rooms for months on end. An assault can be anything that causes us pain, and reeling from this pain does not mean we asked for it. It does not mean — at all — that we deserved it. 

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As much as that powerlessness and vulnerability is a burden, it is preferable to the burden of the worst kind of self-hate. You would not blame yourself for bleeding. You would not declare that your scars were worth it for the pride you wear them with. You would not. We must not. Healing is only possible in letting go and surrendering to one’s vulnerability. 

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And if this all seems rather obvious — good. I’m glad. I’m grateful, truly, that you’ve never had to know, or that you have already done the bitter work of learning. If I had to do it all over, I would gladly live in ignorance of the darkness of the hole. But, if you are not that fortunate, or if you have fallen for the first time this year, then I humbly offer the following. 

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Down there, in the chasm, it’s much too much too easy to wonder how you could’ve avoided falling in — but all that wondering won’t get you out. Be gentle with yourself. Be fiercely kind. You did not ask for this. You do not deserve it. I know that you can’t see me, up here, in the light above ground. You might not believe I even exist; to you, I am a voice in the dark. But I’m here. I’ll keep speaking. And one day, I promise:

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You’ll be up here, too.

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Evlin was the winner of UTSoC’s The Comma’s Semester 1 competition and has been featured on their page. To check out their pieces, click here.

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Contact the UTS Counselling Services on 9514 1177, or visit the UTS Counselling Services website to find out more and access the extensive online self-help resources.

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If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please consider speaking to your local GP, a healthcare professional, or calling one of the numbers below. 

Lifeline — 13 11 14

Beyond Blue — 1300 22 4636

The post In the Light Above Ground appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.

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Long before the currently mandated separation, I felt familiar with this distance. As a child of the internet age, I often recall episodes from my past that never entirely happened — at least not in the physical world. Moments of real connection and emotional substance neutered by pale colour palettes and sterile displays. Now that my COVID-19 social world is made up of these isolated interactions, my friendships feel lonely, like phantom pain.  As we step further and further into this social distancing you might find yourself haunted by the same ghosts. If you’re sensing the idealistic promises of social media starting to erode as loneliness seeps in, this piece is for you. 

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But, how are we capable of this strange dis[connection]? After all, is social media not the saving grace of humanity, touting itself as an extension of — if not a replacement for — traditional means of communication? As the virus holds us and our loved ones hostage, the warnings of the old-guard that “long-distance never works” and “they’re not worth emotionally investing in” are beginning to seem like ancient commandments.

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The idea that ‘real connection’ must be bound to two sets of matching x-y coordinates was already beginning to seem alien. For this is the new limitless social pool, bound only by time zones and bandwidth allowances. Now, with the COVID-19 crisis, our online infrastructure is facing its biggest test thus far: can it truly be an effective substitute for face-to-face connection?

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I feel because of my age and Gen-Z status, it’s almost sacrilege to say this, but: of course not. I think this is largely user error, as our ancient monkey brains require something more substantive than this digital format. Minds that were trained to read reality through the five primary senses have had its stimulus whittled down to just one or two. We crave this connection so badly we’ll even invent our own realities based on the most unassuming of instant messaging prompts. Social media offers nothing but empty information without users. It gives us a platform to exert the full depths of our imaginations and to project our hearts and dreams onto its pale landscapes.

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We try our best to fill these landscapes with the full sensory spectrum. Our minds, the great scavenger-thieves that they are, have cobbled together a catalogue of images, smells, even tastes through archives of previous occurrences, first-hand observations, novels, and perhaps — most importantly — the mass-media library of the internet. We draw from all of these and, suddenly, a conversation mediated through apps on a phone or computer monitor suddenly becomes embodied in our mind, alive with colours, smells, and flavours.

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When we turn that phone off or shut that laptop, we’re reminded that — no matter the internal tinkering and complex emotional arithmetic — we are just two individuals lost in the complex machinery, fishing for whatever interpretation feels the most appealing. Every conversation is a great globe-spanning endeavour involving distant, orbital satellites, cell-phone towers, and intricate communication networks filtered through a chic interface to simulate a closed, private space.

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Besides, while video calls and chat rooms feel personal and private, these platforms (and our data) should not be mistaken for our property. Not only are social media platforms the arbiter of communication, they have now become the gatekeepers of our memories. First confessions of love, reconnecting with old friends, and the rekindling of flames all birthed from 1’s and 0’s. I am part of a small group — growing larger each day — of those whose foundational memories have taken place in offshore accounts. Human connection, corporatized and harvested for advertisement revenue, inflating the commas of awkward tech billionaires. The threat of a data wipe that takes out a decade’s worth of digital investment has me perpetually petrified. I can’t log out from that.

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So, here we are, making innumerable disembodied memories with friends, coworkers, and peers right in our bedrooms. Perhaps, this crisis and these new forms of communication and connection only help to illustrate how alone we are with our thoughts and feelings, no matter the degrees of separation. Instead of arriving home after a night out, we finish our call, take off our headphones, and crawl into bed. A room once filled with life, conversation, and tired jokes from old friends, now nearly empty — except for an impression.

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Holding familiar faces in our hearts in the dark, they’re hazy sketches at best. We do the routine of checking in with all of the social threads, quantify online feedback, post the Instagram story chain-mails, and pray, pray, pray for a time when we can stop pretending that this is enough. That someday soon we can see, feel, or simply breathe in the company of our species without this digital weight.

The post This Digital Weight appeared first on VERTIGO 2020.