u/Successful_Ad1797

I’m tired. I’ve been in this scene for nearly a decade, not long in absolute terms, but long enough.

Right now the dominant trend seems to be identity (social issues), technology, and vulgarity (shock, disgust, disturbance). Every gallery or major exhibition seems to circle around these three themes. Nothing feels exciting, fun, cool, or genuinely new anymore.

Found this master piece "They reconfigured the Pavilion into a porous epistemic field an exhibition-as-pedagogical apparatus where display collapses into discourse, and viewing is rerouted into collective theorization. Within this reterritorialized space, immigrant-queer-Marxist lineages are not merely referenced but recursively reassembled, frictioned against the urgencies of the contemporary moment, producing a shared cognitive substrate in which subjectivity, pedagogy, and political affect blur into a continuously negotiated assemblage."

Come on now I'm so turned off.

(Not meant to offend anyone, I’m not coming from a conservative agenda)

m23

I've somehow ended up living almost completely alone, 24/7. Some weeks I don't speak to a single person. The only conversations I have are with cashiers: "thank you," "yes," and "no."

I live by myself. I'm unemployed at the moment, estranged from my entire family for almost a decade, and I have no friends or acquaintances. I also live in a new country, I spend most of my days studying the language and walking through cemeteries.

I'm honestly so isolated that it feels surreal. It doesn't feel like this is how any human being is supposed to live. I know the steps I need to take to slowly start building connections, and I plan to, but for now, and for the foreseeable future, I'm alone.

m23

I've somehow ended up living almost completely alone, 24/7. Some weeks I don't speak to a single person. The only conversations I have are with cashiers: "thank you," "yes," and "no."

I live by myself. I'm unemployed at the moment, estranged from my entire family for almost a decade, and I have no friends or acquaintances. I also live in a new country, I spend most of my days studying the language and walking through cemeteries.

I'm honestly so isolated that it feels surreal. It doesn't feel like this is how any human being is supposed to live. I know the steps I need to take to slowly start building connections, and I plan to, but for now, and for the foreseeable future, I'm alone.

Hey, I’ve been planning to move to Berlin for job reasons since my sector (arts/heritage) has way more opportunities there than staying in Sweden.

I’ve been doing some reading and research lately, and the vibe I’m getting is a bit off. “Immigrants” seems to be a loaded word there right now, especially when it comes to non-white immigrants. I’m seriously considering moving next spring, but I’m not sure anymore if it’s the right decision. I’m seeing concerns about rising right-wing attitudes and discrimination, and if it’s really as bad as some people say, I might reconsider.

For context, I’m well educated, speak English and very good German, but I’m of African heritage. That’s the part that makes me hesitate.

I’d really like to hear experiences from non-white people, especially Black people living in Berlin/Germany. I had one incident before on a bus in Germany where I was racially profiled by police and asked for ID while nobody else was checked. That never happened to me in Sweden, and I was just visiting a friend at the time was very upset by that naturally.

I just don’t want that kind of thing to become my everyday reality.

Hey, I’ve been planning to move to Berlin for job reasons since my sector (arts/heritage) has way more opportunities there than staying in Sweden.

I’ve been doing some reading and research lately, and the vibe I’m getting is a bit off. “Immigrants” seems to be a loaded word there right now, especially when it comes to non-white immigrants. I’m seriously considering moving next spring, but I’m not sure anymore if it’s the right decision. I’m seeing concerns about rising right-wing attitudes and discrimination, and if it’s really as bad as some people say, I might reconsider.

For context, I’m well educated, speak English and very good German, but I’m of African heritage. That’s the part that makes me hesitate.

I’d really like to hear experiences from non-white people, especially Black people living in Berlin/Germany. I had one incident before on a bus in Germany where I was racially profiled by police and asked for ID while nobody else was checked. That never happened to me in Sweden, and I was just visiting a friend at the time was very upset by that naturally.

I just don’t want that kind of thing to become my everyday reality.

I woke up this morning and this overwhelming feeling of sadness just hit me. I've been completely estranged from my parents for 7 years because of severe domestic abuse, physical, emotional, and sexual. I blocked both of them, changed my name, moved abroad, and have absolutely no idea what they're doing. They don't know anything about me either.

Today it just really hit me that this is my life. A friend of mine was talking about planning a family vacation with her family, and I'm here realizing I've never really had a family. It hurts so much. I know I need to build my own community and create my own family through friends, but holy shit, it's incredibly lonely.

I'll never have contact with my abusers again, but I still miss my mom and my younger siblings that I left behind. It makes me feel so unfortunate that this is just how things are now. Maybe it's some kind of Stockholm syndrome, I don't know. No matter how terrible your parents were, they're still the people you grow up attached to. That attachment doesn't just disappear I fear.

I cried this morning. I'm heading to the gym now, hoping it helps a little. How much longer before they are erased from my memory?

I’ve had this issue for as long as I can remember. I’m not social and I’ve never really cared for it. I don’t like being social. I don’t like being around people, friends or even one-on-one. Honestly, I’m much better off in my own life, being, living, and just existing by myself, I find a lot of joy and rest in that. Every time I go out and meet or talk to people, I know I’m performing and the mask is on, and I know I’m performing, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it, I’ve never liked it. But the problem is that my career in the art/heritage sector is very dependent on networking and talking to people and all of that. I can do it, and I am doing it right now, but I don’t like it.

When I was about 6–15 I was very reclusive, shy, and quiet most of the time. I barely spoke unless spoken to, and that was fine, I liked it that way. I was mostly mute and okay with it. As an adult, unfortunately, I can’t continue like that because of my career, and it feels like it’s stagnating because of it. I see my peers progressing because they’re building networks and “performing” socially more than I do, and I just don’t have the energy or desire for that. I’m an adult in my 20s, autistic but very high functioning. The desire to have friends or a lot of family/social contact is honestly repulsive to me. I prefer being on my own, and I know there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but I also understand the world isn’t really designed for that. I know it’s considered “unhealthy” in some ways, but sometimes life isn’t perfectly aligned with what’s healthy or ideal. I happen to be one of those people in 8billion people who thrives alone and like that way.

I like my job and my career, but honestly I’m exhausted by the social side of it. Even the small amount I do is extremely draining and I know that social skills is a muscle to train. I have trained it and I know how to navigate around people.

m23

I’m autistic, very high functioning, and extremely independent. Lately I’ve been trying to re-evaluate my life, decisions, relationships, all of it. I’m pretty self-aware, I log interactions, sometimes track conversations that feel high stakes, and I look for patterns over time. I journal, document things, revisit them, analyse everything. I’ve spent years trying to be more social, going out more, putting myself in it, and honestly it’s mostly felt miserable. So I’m kind of circling back to what feels more natural to me: keeping to myself and not really talking to people unless I have to. The thing is, I feel like I don’t really have a stable “shape” as a person. My interests are all over the place, I don’t fit any stereotype, I don’t really have a consistent aesthetic or identity theme. Things change, I change. I’ve got depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD and a few other things, but I’m not on medication or in therapy right now.

Most of the time I just feel… deeply discontent. With everything. My identity, my background, gender, religion, all of it just feels like it doesn’t quite “lock in” anywhere. Like I exist slightly outside of everything, in a kind of vacuum, and that’s how I imagine I’ll leave it too. I’ve been trying to figure myself out since I was about 10, and I still just have more questions than answers. That’s partly why I document things, just to see if any patterns ever emerge.

Does anyone else feel like it’s basically impossible to fit into a box? I know people are complex, obviously, but I mean in a more extreme sense, like there’s no consistent “you” that others can reliably read. I have changed name, moved countries, started over multiple times, every person I meet is basically a new person. After meeting someone recently who was also autistic but very stereotypically so, it made me think about this more. They kind of fit the “template” in a way that was almost predictable, and it made my own lack of pattern feel even more noticeable.

I know this might sound self-centred, but I’m pretty sure other people experience this too. I’d be interested to hear how others deal with feeling like an “enigma” or not having a stable sense of identity or fitting anywhere at all.

M23.

Bachelor's in Art History and Conservation. Master's in Heritage and Museum Studies.

For six months I interned at a gallery in Amsterdam under a director-curator full time. When I started, I genuinely thought I had gotten lucky (unpaid too)

She was warm. Friendly. Hugged people. Always smiling. The kind of person who makes you feel welcomed immediately. If you met her for 1h minutes, you'd probably think she was wonderful.

And that's exactly why this experience messed with my head so much. If she had been rude, dismissive, or openly demanding, I would have recognized the situation immediately. Instead, everything came wrapped in kindness. Every concern I had was softened by reassurance. Every extra task came attached to encouragement.

Also like every disappointment came with another promise about the future. The supervision was almost nonexistent meetings were literally all late. Feedback was nonexistent too. I shared documents, research, ideas, and work that often received little or no engagement. Discussions about stipends disappeared. Mentions of introducing me to people in the field never actlayy happened. References to future fundraising positions or being added to payroll surfaced briefly once and twice and then vanished. Yet every time I started questioning things, there was always just enough hope to keep me going. A conversation about future opportunities. A suggestion that paid work might be possible.A mention of important contacts, a reminder of how valuable my contribution was. Just barely enough. Never enough to become reality, but enough to keep me investing more time and effort. Looking back, that's the part that fucking unsettles me the most. Fucking pandoras box shit hope. 

I learned that manipulation does not always looks like lying. Sometimes it looks like making people believe something good is just around the corner. You stay because next month might be different.,... You stay because they "seem" to appreciate you. You stay because they keep always talking about future possibilities. You stay because you don't want to be the difficult intern who asks too many questions. And before you realize it, months have passed.

The crazy thing is that I worked incredibly hard. I wasn't slacking. I wasn't disengaged. I showed up, took initiative, helped with projects, contributed research, and genuinely cared about the institution because I wanted her to see my value or validate me and take me serious. In return, I got experience, sure. But I also got a harsh lesson about power dynamics in the cultural sector.

What I've learned is that exploitation doesn't always happen through pressure. Sometimes it happens through optimism. Some people become experts at creating a future that never quite arrives.And because they're so pleasant, so supportive, so encouraging on the surface, it takes a long time to realize what's happening.

I'm honestly very angry and not because I wasn't paid.

But because I feel like I was encouraged to keep giving more and more labour based on promises and possibilities that were I know were never seriously followed through and intend to. The biggest lesson I've taken away from this is that professionalism isn't measured by how friendly someone is (shocker I know) It's measured by whether they actually do what they say they're going to do.

Has anyone else in museums, galleries, academia, or the arts experienced something similar?

M23.

Bachelor's in Art History and Conservation. Master's in Heritage and Museum Studies.

For six months I interned at a gallery in Amsterdam under a director-curator full time. When I started, I genuinely thought I had gotten lucky (unpaid too)

She was warm. Friendly. Hugged people. Always smiling. The kind of person who makes you feel welcomed immediately. If you met her for 1h minutes, you'd probably think she was wonderful.

And that's exactly why this experience messed with my head so much. If she had been rude, dismissive, or openly demanding, I would have recognized the situation immediately. Instead, everything came wrapped in kindness. Every concern I had was softened by reassurance. Every extra task came attached to encouragement.

Also like every disappointment came with another promise about the future. The supervision was almost nonexistent meetings were literally all late. Feedback was nonexistent too. I shared documents, research, ideas, and work that often received little or no engagement. Discussions about stipends disappeared. Mentions of introducing me to people in the field never actlayy happened. References to future fundraising positions or being added to payroll surfaced briefly once and twice and then vanished.

Yet every time I started questioning things, there was always just enough hope to keep me going. A conversation about future opportunities.

A suggestion that paid work might be possible.A mention of important contacts, a reminder of how valuable my contribution was.

Just barely enough. Never enough to become reality, but enough to keep me investing more time and effort. Looking back, that's the part that fucking unsettles me the most. Fucking pandoras box shit hope. 

I learned that manipulation does not always looks like lying. Sometimes it looks like making people believe something good is just around the corner. You stay because next month might be different.,... You stay because they "seem" to appreciate you. You stay because they keep always talking about future possibilities. You stay because you don't want to be the difficult intern who asks too many questions. And before you realize it, months have passed.

The crazy thing is that I worked incredibly hard. I wasn't slacking. I wasn't disengaged. I showed up, took initiative, helped with projects, contributed research, and genuinely cared about the institution because I wanted her to see my value or validate me and take me serious. In return, I got experience, sure. But I also got a harsh lesson about power dynamics in the cultural sector.

What I've learned is that exploitation doesn't always happen through pressure. Sometimes it happens through optimism. Some people become experts at creating a future that never quite arrives.And because they're so pleasant, so supportive, so encouraging on the surface, it takes a long time to realize what's happening.

I'm honestly very angry and not because I wasn't paid.

But because I feel like I was encouraged to keep giving more and more labour based on promises and possibilities that were I know were never seriously followed through and intend to. The biggest lesson I've taken away from this is that professionalism isn't measured by how friendly someone is (shocker I know) It's measured by whether they actually do what they say they're going to do.

Has anyone else in museums, galleries, academia, or the arts experienced something similar?

Male, 23

Finished both a bachelor’s and now almost done with a master’s, and I’ve started noticing a very consistent limit in my cognitive stamina. I’m curious if this is actually "normal" or if other people experience the same thing.

My limits seem to be:

* Around 2000 words/day of genuinely high-quality academic writing

* About 3 hours of deep focused work with zero distractions and full brainpower

* Around 6–7 hours total sitting/working with breaks before I’m completely mentally done

And I mean DONE done. Like after that point, even if the exam/project is super important for my future, my brain and body just switch into suffering mode. I can still force myself to continue, but the quality drops hard and everything feels painful.

What surprises me is how consistent this has been throughout my life. Childhood, university, now mid-20s, same pattern.

Does anyone else have a hard upper limit like this? Especially people in academia, programming, research, law, medicine, etc. Curious what your “real” limit is versus what society expects us to be capable of.

Genuinely, I’m confused about what the “joke” was supposed to mean here.

I work at the register in a retail store in central Amsterdam. Three dark-skinned men from Mozambique came in asking for a tax-free purchase. I asked for their passports and started filling in the form. Then I said:

“I’ll need your address here please — street name and postcode.”

One of them replied:
“Street? It’s a jungle out there.”

Then they all laughed, repeated the phrase to each other, nodded, and looked at me as if I was supposed to laugh along too.

And I was honestly just confused.

What exactly was supposed to be funny here? I seriously don’t understand the humour. To me it came across more like some kind of awkward insecurity performance or self-aware joke that I wasn’t in on.

What was actually going on socially in that moment, and why did they expect me to react along with them?