Transitioning into the arts felt like stepping into a house where the doors were technically open, but the rooms were full of people who spoke in a language I didn’t recognise. As someone who worked my way into the creative world, I’ve never felt so simultaneously drawn in and shut out. It’s strange, isn’t it? The arts are supposed to be about expression and humanity, yet sometimes it feels like there’s an invisible velvet rope sectioning off who truly belongs.
Growing up in Malaysia, this feeling is familiar. We adore STEM. We glorify medicine, engineering, law, accounting, “stable” fields. Creativity? Arts? Writing? Those are hobbies. Backups. The things you’re “allowed” to pursue after you’ve proven yourself in something more respectable. And even then, people still ask if you’re sure. So when I finally chose the arts, I thought I’d find my place—a home full of colour and acceptance.
But the truth hit differently.
There is an elitism in the arts that no one warns you about. It’s subtle, wrapped in academic jargon, insider references, and (not so) quiet judgment. There’s a hierarchy: who studied where, who knows whom, who uses the “right” theory, who fits the current aesthetic trend. If you don’t come from an art school, a creative family, or the right social circles, you’re treated like an outsider, gently tapping on the window.
And I tapped for a while. I second-guessed myself and wondered if there was something inherently “less than” about coming from law—a world of logic and structure—into a space built on abstracts and experimentation. But the longer I stay, the more I realise something important: gatekeeping says more about the gatekeepers than the art itself.
I guess this mentality is inherited. Historically, the arts grew out of patronage, wealth, academia, and taste-makers who decided what counted as “real” or “serious” art. Those old systems set up centuries ago still echo today, shaping who gets opportunities, who gets legitimised, and who gets quietly nudged to the sidelines.
To summarise my thoughts (before they run wild again), I think art, at its core, isn’t elitist. Institutions can be. People can be. Systems can be. But the act of creating? The thing that lives in your bones, the whisper that becomes a story, the scribble that becomes a world? That belongs to everyone.
Maybe the arts don’t need to become less elitist for us to belong. Maybe we just need to keep creating until the walls break themselves.