thriving in the art world as a working professional

2025-11-30 23:55 Note Type: journal, insta-post Tags: art-world, london, learned-meaninglessness, man's-search-for-meaning, viktor-frankl

Thriving in the art world as a middle-class working professional is like swimming in a pond with iron cubes hung on your body. 

Mumma still expects a government job in India. My family friends in London wonder why am I not shooting food videos for restaurants and earning shit load of money in London. Baba doesn’t say anything because he simply trusts me with all his heart and soul. My wifey asks if I applied to the next company. I am happy that she is at-least open to the he idea of staring off our own business. I’ll be better off reporting to my wife than a khadoooss boss.

My uncles and relatives still believe that I didn’t get a job in Odisha for which I escaped to London. And I am like, hein…. That makes me stare ar the sky for a long time and accept the “learned meaninglessness” of life, as viktor writes in “man’s search for meaning”.

Anyway, amidst all these, I have been able to do a thing or two in the creative space. Little things which are not that little. 

This post is a bow to my friends.

Thank you my lifelines.

Whatever I have been able to do till date is quite literally all due to my friends!! The love and support of my extremely talented hardworking friends who go that extra mile!

I didn’t have any expectations from yesterday’s exhibition. But the way all of you showed up even without an invitation made me feel so grateful. 

From getting the prints done with high level staff discounts in the best print shops of London, to carrying around stuff, to dropping me with my huge acrylic sheet to the train station, to drilling holes on the walls, to fixing the installation and posters on the walls, to the final deinstall, I wonder if I could have done any of it without you guys. 

Baby steps in the art world. 

A lot of invisible barriers to cross. Financial, social, you name it…  I don’t even know if I can ever cross those. Only time has the answers. 

And anything can happen.  Trust the timings. 

To more art, love and friends.  To more serendipity, luck and life. 

With lots of love, Abodid