I Quit My 9 to 5 Job, So Why Am I Still Trying to Fit Into the System?
(10/15 minutes lecture)
Yes, very cliché: the millennial left her corporate job to see what it’s like to be a full-time artist. But do you want to hear the funniest part?
I am now crowdfunding the event that will launch my upcycling art fashion collection, O MAR.
Because I want this cultural and artistic event to be accessible to everyone on the island and I have no funds for it.
But let me give you some context before I get to the meat of it.
It has been a while.
A really long while.
Honestly, I am not very good with words. Today, I wanted to allow myself to share not only what I am building, but also the questions, contradictions and uncertainties that come with building it.
Over the past few years, Kistaku has slowly evolved from what started as a girl teaching herself how to sew cute tops into an independent upcycling fashion project, and then into something much broader: a space for upcycling textile art, fashion, visual arts, installations, performance, creative direction and experimentation with discarded materials.
And I have been trying to understand what that actually means.
For me, for Kistaku, and for the kind of artist I want to become.
This year, I decided to stop trying to figure it all out from the side.
In January, I reached an agreement with the company where I was working as a Senior Customer Success Manager. The CEO and the team supported my decision to take a year away from corporate life and try something I had been postponing for years:
What would happen if I actually gave myself the time and space to become a full-time artist?
I loved my colleagues. I had never worked for a healthier company. I learned a lot there, and I left with genuine gratitude.
It was not an easy decision, but it was necessary because I had burnt out.
I was working a full-time job while also producing the 2025 CARROUSEL collection (discover it here) I produced more than 30 exclusive pieces, organized a full fashion show with more than 50 people collaborating with me, and directed everything at both the artistic and organizational levels, all with my own money.
It took me a few months to emotionally recover from that day. I was exhausted and something in me was asking for space.
Space to think. Space to create. Space to experiment. Space to fail. Space to dedicate myself fully to Kistaku and to my wellbeing.
And, above all, space to find out whether this thing I had been building on the side since 2019 could actually become my life, and how.
I have always been a creative person
Long before I knew what an artistic career was supposed to look like, I was practising many artistic disciplines.
Music. Dance. Painting.
And, apparently, fashion.
When I was a child, I used my grandmother’s scraps of fabric to make clothes for my Barbies. I didn't know anything about fashion systems, business models, creative industries or sustainability.
I just wanted to make beautiful things.
Then I studied Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Murcia, a degree that was supposed to open the door to a huge range of professional opportunities. I was a high-performing student and even received the University’s Extraordinary Degree Prize, a beautiful little piece of paper that has been surprisingly useless in my actual life.
But hey! I loved many of my teachers. I learned a lot about cultural industries, social and cultural studies, how to communicate, build ideas, understand audiences and work professionally.
But somewhere along the way, I realised that I didn't want to spend my life giving up my ideas in exchange for making things more attractive for mass consumption.
No judgement towards those who choose that path. It simply wasn't mine.
I always knew that if I was ever going to build a business around my creativity, it would have to be according to my own values. What a dream job looks like otherwise?
And then, in 2018, once I moved to Paris, I discovered Fashion Revolution
It was one of those moments where something suddenly had a name.
There were people questioning the way fashion was produced, consumed and valued. People questioning who makes our clothes, under what conditions, from which materials, and at what cost to people and the planet.
Since then, the movement has grown. New companies, designers, artists and alternative models have appeared. Even big companies pretend to be part of it during Fashion Weeks. (My sceptical self never believed that came from a genuine place.)
And yet...
We are still trying to figure out how to make this work in a world that has become accustomed to quick access, instant gratification, constant change and effortless consumption. I’ve also seen many other brands fail and close down…
And here I am, years later, still trying to figure it out.
I left my 9 to 5.
I decided to become an independent artist.
And somehow, I am still confronted with the same system dynamics.
Because, ultimately, if we don't sell, we don't eat.
And this is where my tormented artistic soul finds itself.
The fashion industry is exhausting.
Fast fashion/ Prêt-à-porter/ Haute couture/ Fashion weeks/ Luxury/ Trends/ Drops/ Resale/ Second-hand mountains.
Different levels. Different aesthetics. Different price points.
And yet, sometimes, I can't help wondering whether they are all ultimately driven by the same things:
consumption, status, money and power. Trust me, I’ve seen this even more after living seven years in Paris.
I have even been a victim of this pandemic of titles, that little dopamine hit you get from having a badge with your name on it at a fashion event, even when the designer doesn’t know how to sew a shirt, or doesn’t even know you exist.
(I would love to apologise for my criticism here, but somehow someone had to say it.)
But yet, it is undeniable: we are what we consume. We have been for ages now.
So we consume to communicate who we are.
We want exclusivity, but with easy access to the items.
We want to be different, but still belong somewhere.
We want authenticity, but we expect artists to communicate, sell, post, network, build a personal brand, create content, understand algorithms and behave like businesses.
We say we want original artists.
Then we ask for scores to see if they are profitable.
And even after leaving the corporate world, I find myself confronted with the same question:
How do I make my work sustainable without turning myself into something I don't want to be?
Because what an artist actually wants is surprisingly simple.
We want to create.
Freely.
Of course, we understand that art needs to communicate.
We are willing to adapt our language so that more people can understand it.
We are willing to explain our processes.
We are willing to learn how to run a business.
We are willing to negotiate.
We are willing to compromise.
Sometimes we even create more “commercial” or “accessible” work because we need to survive.
And increasingly, artists are expected to become everything else too:
Content creators/ Entrepreneurs/ Photographers/ Public relations managers/ Social media strategists/ Community managers/ Fundraisers/ Salespeople.
Maybe this is simply what being an independent artist means today. And I can do all of that, but it is extremely exhausting. Because there is a part of me that doesn't want to spend more time explaining how to sell the art than actually making it.
So what am I trying to build?
I don't have the perfect answer, and perhaps that's the honest part. I'm still figuring it out.
But I know what I don't want: I don't want Kistaku to become another fashion brand producing more and more things simply because producing more is how you survive.
I don't want to make objects just because they are easier to sell.
I don't want to create something because an algorithm tells me that this is what people are currently interested in.
And I don't want accessibility to mean making art cheaper, faster or less meaningful.
Like many human beings on this earth, I want my work to be respected and valued. And, beyond my own needs, I would love art and culture to be accessible to everyone who doesn't have access to those worlds.
And I think there is an important distinction.
I want anyone to be able to walk into a museum.
I want anyone to be able to attend an exhibition.
I want anyone to be able to attend a fashion show, a performance or experience a public artwork.
I want a child, a tourist, a local resident, a student, an artist, someone who has never entered a gallery before, anyone, to feel that culture belongs to them too.
But that doesn't mean everyone has to own the artwork.
Not everyone can buy a painting.
Not everyone can acquire a one-of-a-kind textile sculpture.
And that's okay.
The value of an artwork does not disappear because it is not accessible for purchase.
Maybe accessibility should mean access to experience, rather than access to ownership.
This is part of what I am trying to build with Kistaku.
I want to create exclusive, high-value artworks while making the experience of art itself as open and accessible as possible.
And perhaps that's where my biggest question remains:
How do I make a living from it?
What economic model allows me to create fewer, meaningful, high-value works, while still making culture accessible to people who cannot afford to own them?
I know what I want to build.
I'm just still trying to understand how to build a sustainable life around it.
And this is why O MAR matters to me.
O MAR started as an artistic exploration of the relationship between us and the sea. Where I feel at peace.
Discarded textiles. Fishing nets. Plastic. Found materials. Local resources. Stories. Landscapes. Communities.
But it has become much more than a collection.
It is an attempt to connect art, environmental awareness, culture and participation.
And now I am bringing the project to Boa Vista, Cabo Verde. Place that I visited several times and I feel a strong connection.
I want the final event to be free and open to the public. Not because producing it costs nothing.
Quite the opposite. Artists, collaborators, materials, transportation, production, space, technical equipment, documentation, all of these things have a cost.
Free access does not mean free production.
And this is where I find myself asking for help. Not because I have found the perfect business model. Not because I have figured out how to make art “profitable”. But because I believe this project deserves to exist, and I want more people to be able to experience it.
So yes, I am crowdfunding. And yes, part of me finds it uncomfortable.
Because asking people for money to make art can feel contradictory when you are trying to question a system built around consumption.
O MAR is the next chapter.
If you want to be part of it, you can support the crowdfunding, share it, talk about it, or simply follow the journey.
Because perhaps building a different way of creating culture starts with all of us participating differently.
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