AMFI to me has been a love-hate relationship as long as I can remember. I never felt good enough...

For me, the hell started really during the second year. During Triptych I was part of the event team and had to work with teacher X. He never shied away from making sexist comments and being dismissive towards the girls (and gays) in the team. When confronted about this, he put the blame on us as we were young thus dumb. After the event, he and teacher Y became intoxicated and couldn’t be responsible anymore. I felt responsible for the state of the location. This was a monument and we were briefed on how expensive it all was and that we needed to be careful. So we took out time cleaning up, ensuring nothing was damaged yet teacher X and teacher Y found it more important for us to get intoxicated with them and rush the cleaning and thus damaging the floor. At that point I broke and couldn’t comprehend what was happening...

The second time period of trauma occurs during Atelier during the design classes from teacher Z. He held classes in the hallway, public space for everyone to see us. He found it good for us to present our work to the whole class. After presenting he continued by breaking us with a barrage of questions. Most of them too personal and deep to answer on the spot. Each week he wanted more and see more uncovered secrets or trauma exposed. Most students broke and cried during those classes. He never comforted a single one.

To the ones that weren’t creative enough he recommend a weekend of heavy alcohol and drug use to get the juices flowing.

I broke over and over after those session with him. And never found my deep personal matters raw/pure enough. A constant search of finding new trauma, constantly uprooting that I what I buried for a reason, just created more trauma and ultimately forced me to stop. The pain creates creativity mentality by teachers was a constant and constructive positive upbuilding was rare.

BUT Not all teachers share this! AMFI also taught me so much and love working with those teachers that lift me up. Since my second year, AMFI has been putting in the work to reduce the work load and make the school a safer environment.