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In response to the end of 2019, I reviewed the rejections that I had received this year as an artist. Besides self doubts and down feelings, I believed that there must be more that I could unpack from these unsuccessful results. Although it is known that receiving rejection is a common experience for most of contemporary practicing artists, within the art community, we barely mention and share about our sense of failure in our art career.

Why? Maybe rejections are too embarrassing to talk about. Or perhaps we try very hard to forget about them. By the end of 2019, I refuse to internalise these rejections solely again.

For the questions: Why was I rejected? What should I think about the rejection? How could I emotionally cope with the rejection?, I invited four curators, writers and visual artists: Sophia Cai, Diego Ramirez, Nikki Lam and James Nguyen to share their experiences in receiving rejections in the art. I hope our conversation would be helpful for many other artist listeners.

** Our conversation went for nearly 2 hour long. In an organic order, the four speakers came in and left the conversation at various points due to their availabilities on that day. Therefore, it was divided into two episodes. Also, I kept some background noises in the sound tracks, such as the sound of door bells, of chewing, of a kettle boiling, etc.. I apologise if they might be too much of annoyance for the listeners. It was because 1, it was difficult to separate them from our voices; 2, I did want to convey the domestic and relaxed atmosphere where our conversation was conduced.

Anyway, enjoy this special podcast conversation! THANK for listening!


Speakers:
1, Sophia Cai
Curator, Writer
https://www.sophiacai.info

2, Diego Ramirez
Visual Artist, Writer, Gallery Manager of Seventh Gallery
http://www.diego-ramirez.net

3, Nikki Lam
Visual Artist, Writer, Curator
http://nikkilam.info

4, James Nguyen
Visual Artist
http://jamesnguyen.com.au

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