Taking the leap
Two friends reflect on pivotal career changes at the onset of the pandemic
By Joel Valabrega and Martina Santoro
For a long time, friends Joel and Martina’s working lives couldn’t have been more different. Joel, a curator, was freelance and always on the look-out for new collaborations, while Martina worked a steady job at a cultural communications agency.
But when the coronavirus pandemic broke out in February, their roles were suddenly reversed.
This is their story of the last months.
Joel
Photography Joel Valabrega
On February 27, my partner and I set off from our home in Milan for an unusual journey. We drove through the night like fugitives. I was moving to Luxembourg for work to begin my first job with a permanent contract. In the previous days it had become crystal clear how serious COVID-19 was and people had started to talk (albeit still hypothetically) about an imminent lockdown. The fear of being stuck at the border and of not being able to start this new work experience – which, for me, would have meant reverting to a state of professional uncertainty – was so great that we decided to move up our departure, and left in the middle of the night.
I am an independent curator – or rather I was independent until I left Italy at the end of February. It feels particularly strange to live in the richest country in the world at this particular moment in history, when Italy, Europe, and everyone else around the globe is experiencing a crisis that is difficult to overcome.
Looking back at my life path to date, I never thought I would find myself here. We've been hopping from one Airbnb to another for more than two months now. Today, I'm writing these thoughts in a rather soulless place, all pristine-white and entirely furnished with Ikea and Maisons du Monde pieces.
The place is fully kitted with all possible accessories: a television that projects a coloured light that changes according to the colour palette of the images on the screen; a Dyson vacuum cleaner; a fully stocked kitchen with an induction stove top; a washing machine with automatic dryer. There is even a small garden with perfectly trimmed grass and perfectly geometric flower beds that separate my garden from the neighbours'. I feel like a character in 3D architectural render. My house is a middle class dream, a triumph of consumption and capitalism. What more can a young couple possibly want? And yet I never thought I would spend so many hours in such a context.
Photography Joel Valabrega
For the six years I have been working in the contemporary art sector, I have never had any certainties. I never had a contract. I never had legal protection. I never received a formal salary. For a long time I, like many others, believed I should consider myself blessed to be able to work in this field at all, not knowing when (or if) I’d ever be paid in actual, real money. The “salary” was the gratification of working with artists I appreciated, the honour of dialoguing with interesting curators.
Many are the jobs I have done for free because it was a good opportunity, because I would meet interesting people, because I’d interact with cultures I wouldn’t have come across otherwise; because it would help foster skills and build foundations for future jobs – the list is long.
Having traded the uncertainty of freelance work for a permanent position just as the world was entering a global catastrophe, I’ve never been so deeply aware of the compromises those who work in the art world are often forced to accept. Freelancing gave me greater freedom of thought, but it also meant enduring economic sacrifices and making difficult life choices. Working as an employee, on the other hand, has exposed me to new interpersonal dynamics and new ways of working, granting me, in this moment of crisis, a sense of security unlike any I’ve experienced before.
Martina
Photography Joel Valabrega
March 6 was the last time I left home. On March 7, Lombardy was locked down. On March 8, while driving back home from the supermarket, I was stopped by a police officer for an inspection.
When they learned I hadn't renewed the MOT and didn't have my registration book (yes, I know, not cool) they gave me a heavy fine. With a large sum to pay to the Municipality of Milan, I realised I was still waiting on payment for a job I had done more than a month before – a payment I could have used to pay the fine.
For me, the uncertainty and financial realities of freelance life are still new. In December 2019, after working for several years in cultural communications, I made a decision: no more office, no more small talk with colleagues at the coffee machine, no more passive aggressive (or just aggressive) bosses. I wanted to be autonomous, I wanted to manage myself.
I knew that, in theory, I could make it work. I’m not afraid of managing my own time or being alone, and I felt sure I could cope with this new professional setting. So before the pandemic broke out, I turned down a well-paid job in a press office and – after cheering myself on and overcoming my overthinking – I embraced my life decision.
But in the mess that is 2020, when work and social structures have collapsed and we’re having to rebuild ourselves as professionals and as human beings, this decision has taken on more weight.
When my city went into lockdown, I found myself confined alone to my apartment. With a bit of embarrassment, I admit that I succumbed to the initial euphoria and found myself coyly standing by the window singing the Italian anthem with my neighbours, and dancing to the notes of "Azzurro." When I returned to the silence inside the house, I had goosebumps from the excitement I had been feeling.
But then I realised that those moments of escape – which normally I would have looked at cynically and found them unpleasant – I had the luxury of not thinking. I didn’t have to think about how, if I had accepted that job in December, I wouldn't have had to get lost in the bureaucratic maze of economic aid for the self-employed (spoiler: I'm not entitled to anything). I wouldn’t have to think about whether this is the right moment to get in touch with this agency or that publisher to propose a collaboration; to dwell on the fact that I have to be reminded of my professional uncertainty in a time where companies are struggling to pay their employees... not to mention the self-employed, who, even under normal circumstances, have to be on the constant lookout for work.
In these months, new anxieties have been added to my usual ones, but against my expectations, new stimuli have also blossomed. In response to the slowdown of my workflow, I have tried to invest my time studying, deepening some aspects of my job and coming up with new ideas to float during the craved “after."
Photography Joel Valabrega
Then, of course, I too made bread, practiced yoga, decluttered my wardrobe and improved my pottery skills. I finally caught up with some TV series and watched tutorials on how to learn to skip rope, despite not having a rope. And my apartment, which, until January, was just a passing station, has become my little refuge, where I can develop new experiences and opportunities that, before, I thought were just "out there."
Now that more than two months have passed, I’ve inevitably started to wonder whether I have made the right decision. Honestly, I have no clue. What I do know, though, is that in this forced confinement, I have learned to be with myself, with the infinite me’s that dwells inside me, with my voices, my choices and their consequences. Sometimes, in the silence, I hear a part of me yelling at me for bad timing. In that same silence, I tell myself that I did everything wrong and that I should have taken that job.
But that's okay for now, because I didn't have a conference on Zoom today, I didn't have to write a report for my boss, I didn't have to think of what it will be like when I will return to my desk in my office wearing a mask. It is true that everything has collapsed and everything will have to be rebuilt, but I have managed to remain strong within me, in my decision. So far so good.
