“My independence developed in a way that furthered my sense of self": TAP student Caitlin Harte reflects on their internship with Typset.

In this post TAP student, Caitlin reflects on creativity and teamwork during their time at Typeset. Caitlin also composed a fantastic poem exploring themes of colour and place, which you can read at the end of this post!

For my placement, I was working at Typeset- a non-profit bookshop and co-working space run by a team of neurodivergent artists. The diversity of the directors was a really great thing to see as although they all work in the creative sector, it was interesting to see how they approach art differently and how they define art and its place as well as how they make art unique to them and their values. It was also really insightful to hear about the varied ways in which they became artists.

Me and my fellow intern, Jess, were given essentially complete freedom over what our project would be which was incredibly freeing but also somewhat scary. I suppose as a result of my age, in my previous jobs I had not really been given much control over anything before but rather been instructed. The idea that people so much more experienced than me trusted me to plan and run a series of events almost unsupervised was very confidence inspiring and made me feel as though I was actually an adult. That said, having such responsibility with such little supervision was daunting as I felt as though this meant there was no room for error or asking for advice.

So instead of being fully guided by those at Typeset, we learned from projects of theirs that we helped with earlier in the summer, such as their feminist “Soapbox” project and an interactive art piece centred around the Women’s Euros, bringing the knowledge and skills from these into planning and executing our own project. These projects showed us how networking works, how to budget and market online and in print as well as how to go about brainstorming and developing ideas.

Jess and I decided to run a series of creative workshops focused around gender, as this theme related to the previous projects and Typeset’s core aims as a CIC, as well as being a theme important to me and Jess as gender is something both of us have felt the need to discuss and explore, both in an introspective and academic capacity.

We also thought it was really important for our project to be creative in nature as the opportunity to be creative was what me and Jess were most excited about in the TAP project from the beginning as we both felt as though we had lost touch with our creative sides and were inspired by the artists we now found ourselves surrounded by. 

Neither of us had really done much art since secondary school despite having enjoyed it then and taking an interest in it since- visiting museums and galleries and reading about art history. I suppose both of us felt as though a lack of practising creativity distanced us from our creative selves. I, therefore, found it extremely beneficial to facilitate an artistic project in 3 different creative mediums to reintroduce myself to artistic practices. This enabled me to express my thoughts, feelings and sense of self in a new way and I will definitely try to continue similar creative practices in the future.

My placement really stood out from my previous work experience as I did not just do tasks independently or take initiative towards simple, common tasks. My independence developed in a way that furthered my sense of self.

As I was given a platform to explore my interests and go about this in ways I wanted and saw fit. This made me feel trusted as a true adult. All the challenges that came with this, and how I overcame them, developed my confidence in myself and my personal and professional abilities.

I will always be grateful for this and how it has taught me to not be so anxious about new experiences and to believe in my ability to do things I have not done before. I am also so grateful for Jess who was a wonderful internship partner, confidant and friend.

A Green Typewriter All Grown-Up

Open stretches of freedom in large fields of green 

Where all sorts of trees and flowers may take root 

all by themselves, and with seemingly no help

The plants are a wild, deep, dark enchanting colour of emeralds and peridot, velvet, broken bottles of booze, money and seedy neon signs

A colour of lust, desire, a need for control

A young man

Who’s never been or had what he wanted

Dyes his hair, paints it

Seaglass

Is this…

A rebellion?

A political act?

A superficial fashion choice?

Definitively, it is a symbol of 

Independence

Self-Control

  Freedom 

Autonomy

He makes his hair evergreen,

In a bathroom with a green feature wall