Recently, while out for a walk, my sister told me that it had always been clear to those around us that the things my (male) friends and I did were special. As if we were destined to achieve great things. Nobody questioned it; least of all ourselves. When I look back now at the work from my early years as an artist, I have to be honest with myself: much of it is rubbish. The only thing that was convincing was my self-confidence. Perhaps that is a quality. But certainly one that would have been my undoing had I been a woman.

Shortly after that conversation, I found my girlfriend’s sketchbooks – from our time together at design school. They were much better than mine at the time. Yet I became an ‘artist’ and she did not. Nobody questioned it, not even to this day. It is not as if I cannot do anything. I have learnt a lot, precisely because I was given the chance to try everything, as no one doubted that I could do it too. I have organised many art exhibitions, written music, played in an up-and-coming band, acted in plays, directed, ended up in film via a roundabout route, and some things have gone quite well. Just learning by doing, really.
My sister told me back then, too: she thought it was a shame she’d never had any female bandmates. People who stuck with her through thick and thin. None of her friends had the confidence to start a band that was not great.

My current studio neighbour runs a music label that mainly releases bands featuring women. Not as a concept, but because the demos he receives from women are simply usually better, more polished and more exciting, even though there are far fewer of them. And that reminded me of the demos we used to send out back when we started out. I should really listen to them again. We thought they were the best thing ever. We saw ourselves as the next big thing. The fact that nobody replied did not stop us from carrying on. Is that a good thing? I do not know. I just know that it would have been different if I had been my sister.