I'm done being a wallflower

Thoughts on hiding and the need to get out there for my art

Jun 02, 2025

01.

My chair was moving again. Up and down, up and down, up and down. Non-stop. I thought about turning around and giving him a mean stare, but stopped myself. I remembered what my older brother had told me earlier that week: just pretend you don’t care, then he’ll stop. I endured it, trying to focus on what Eunice, the math teacher, was saying. I couldn’t make much sense of it, and the chair movement wasn’t helping. But after what felt like countless minutes, Alan finally rested his feet. I guess my brother was right. If only I could pretend I didn’t exist, everything would be fine.

02.

I was six years old. I’d sit on the floor in front of the TV, always with the volume low. I hated loud noises. They were too overwhelming. So I preferred to stay quiet. As my aunt Tita entered my mom’s room, I split my attention between their conversation and Power Rangers. “She’s so quiet,” my aunt said at some point. To which my mom proudly replied, “Yes, she’s very nice. She never causes any trouble.” And off I went to make mama proud — determined to be a good girl and never cause any trouble.

03.

I was born in a small town in southern Brazil. A city whose economy relies mostly on a hospital, a university, and shoe stores (go figure). I never felt like I truly fit in. I had friends, but more out of not wanting to be alone than anything else. Mostly, I grew up thinking there was something wrong with me — because I never felt quite right around those people.

You can see that, from a very early age, I was already not pleased in that environment

04.

I remember the day my brother brought home his first personal computer. And with it came the internet. I was mesmerized. During the week, I’d spend hours playing The Sims — living in a reality I could control. On the weekends, when the internet was cheaper, I dove into mIRC and met people. One of them became my best friend and helped me ease into a new school, where I finally got to be part of a crowd that didn’t care about the size of my too big of a nose.

Online, I could connect with people from places I couldn’t reach — like São Paulo, where everything happens in Brazil. They liked the same things I did. They didn’t judge me by how I looked.

I created blogs, designed templates, added subtitles to TV shows people would download from torrents. For the first time, I felt like I belonged, like who I was and what I did was valued. And I was happy.

By my twenties, I had already lived so many meaningful experiences online. I had a brand-new nose and no longer felt the need to hide. I even started working with brands I never imagined — including doing photo shoots for Facebook. But I was still kind of stuck in the Brazilian countryside.

04.

I traveled abroad for the first time at 22. When I came back home, I remember thinking I was not alone in this world anymore. I had finally met people who didn’t ask about my religion as if it were the most important thing about me (people in Brazil are very religious — and very hypocritical, too.) I realized I couldn’t stay much longer. I wanted something else. I wanted safety. I wanted the people. The culture. The freedom.

For the first time in Berlin — featuring way too much IG filters

So, a few years later, I got my first remote job and began traveling the world. I could only do it thanks to the World Wide Web. And I’ve been doing almost everything online ever since.

Over the years, the internet became a place to express my feelings and share my art — from the days of Flickr and Photobucket to now. I’ve written hundreds of essays. Met people I never would’ve crossed paths with offline. But the internet also became a great big comfort zone.

05.

While visiting Berlin earlier this year, I caught myself staring at a few works by a French artist, at Boros Bunker. I wrote down his name to look him up later. When I typed it into Google, nothing came up. He was nowhere to be found. Except, it struck me: he is offline.

A couple months later, at a wedding in northern Italy, I met an artist who told me about how she was exhibiting her work in Swiss galleries. When I asked how that happened, she said: “I have a friend who owns a gallery. She invited me.” That hit me hard. How had I overlooked this for so long? Why haven’t I been networking?

06.

The word networking used to make me cringe. But slowly, I started seeing its value.
The internet had worked for me — but it wasn’t working wonders anymore. It was getting harder to grow, to be seen, to be noticed.

And one thing I knew was: I didn’t want to make disposable videos — and I wanted to have the freedom to unplug.

That’s when I realized, after six years living abroad: I was no longer in Tubarão, my hometown. I was in Europe, living near a big city. I was finally in the “real world”, where things were happening, and I could meet interesting people — in person.

So, as terrifying as it seemed, meeting people offline started to feel like the next logical step.

07.

I’ve seen some questionable work on gallery walls lately. And that only happened because I left Instagram and stepped into the real world. So, not to put anyone down, but that’s when I realized: my work isn’t that bad after all.

It was a moment of: “Well, if they can be in galleries, maybe I can too.” I’m no Sebastião Salgado, but I’m also not terrible. Maybe I’m somewhere in between. Maybe I also belong here.

08.

I went to my first official event as a wanna be networker last week. I was terrified — but I showed up. There, I met someone I clicked with instantly. I felt like I could relax and just be myself. I told her how I’d lived in Asia, traveled through Patagonia, gone solo to Japan, wrote a book, and had a halfway-successful newsletter in Brazil.

And I realized she — someone I admired — admired me back. Not for who I could become, but for who I already was. That moment changed everything. I saw that I didn’t need to become more. I didn’t need to be someone else. What I do is already pretty awesome.

Proud of myself for having the courage to approach a very important person — and get her business card <3

It took a few deep breaths — and quite a few therapy sessions — to realize I was interesting. That I could hold a conversation. Be smart, charming, even cute — in my own quirky, lovable way.

09.

Later on, I stood at the back of the room — the perfect place for an introvert like me.
Someone came over and said, “There are two seats in the front row.” The old me would’ve said, Front row? No way. But the newer version of me said, “Thank you,” and walked straight to the front. After all, I wanted to talk to the speakers. And what better way to start a conversation than by being seen?

I didn’t realize it then, but something had shifted.

What had worked before — the hiding, the silence, the not asking for what I needed — wasn’t going to take me anywhere anymore. I had spent a lifetime trying not to be seen. Trying not to bother. Believing being a wallflower was safer.

And little by little, I’ve come to understand: I’m not in 5th grade anymore. The other “kids” aren’t going to be mean to me. I’m not in my hometown, where no one cared about what I had to say because I was “too different.”

Now, people stop to listen. They’re interested. I’m valued.

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