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SINGAPORE: A Singapore worker who had nearly a year to prepare for retrenchment still found herself unready when the final day arrived. Her story shows that job loss affects more than just income for some, as they link their career loss to a loss of identity, routine, and a sense of place in society.

She was given 10 months’ notice as her company moved operations overseas. During that time, she trained a replacement team and kept work running. On paper, it looked like a smooth transition, but in reality, it became a slow, drawn-out goodbye, Channel NewsAsia (CNA) reports (April 27).

A grief that stayed buried in silence

Instead of processing the loss, she focused on staying productive. Work became her shield. The grief stayed buried.

Colleagues left one by one. The office shrank. By her final day, only two people remained from what was once an 18-member team.

The ending didn’t come with a dramatic send-off. There were no meetings, no speeches. Just a silent return of her laptop and access card. That silence hit harder than expected.

She left the office and cried in a cinema, alone

She tried to stay composed. That image held for months… but then it collapsed in minutes.

A simple exchange with a colleague triggered it. Then another brief conversation. Words became difficult. Emotions surfaced all at once. She left the office and cried in a cinema, alone, during a weekday screening.

From the outside, retrenchment can look clean. Severance is paid. Work ends. Life moves on. But what disappears is harder to measure. It is the daily rhythm. The sense of usefulness. The quiet pride in doing something well.

Her identity had become tied to her job role

Over time, she realised her identity had become tied to her role. For two decades, her value was linked to output and performance. Without that title, there was a void.

She tried to stay busy at first, updating her resume, planning next steps, and filling time, but it didn’t help. The emotional impact came in waves. Some days were productive. Others were slow and heavy.

Friends who had gone through layoffs told her the same thing. The feeling doesn’t vanish overnight.

Mindset shift: Seeking internal value instead of chasing external validation

With space to think, harder questions surfaced. Was she chasing senior roles out of interest, or validation? Would she accept less pay for more time with her family?

These weren’t urgent questions before, but they became painfully unavoidable after her job ended, so she decided to pause job seeking for a few months. Not to delay, but to reset.

That reset led to small mindset changes, such as writing for herself. Spending free time without guilt. Trying new things without a work outcome attached to it.

Eventually, one of those efforts led to a children’s book deal. It then changed how she saw her own value. Different didn’t mean any less.

Giving people more time to prepare doesn’t make retrenchment easier

Layoffs have now become more common across sectors as Singapore’s cost-of-living pressures and restructuring also continue across the region.

The Singaporean worker’s story stands out because it challenges a common belief: that giving people more time to prepare makes retrenchment easier. It certainly doesn’t.

A longer lead-up to ending someone’s career can stretch the emotional strain, delay closure, and keep people stuck in a space between, where they are still working while they’re on their way out. This tension builds silently within.

For many, work isn’t just a job. It is their identity, so when it disappears, people are forced to ask questions they may have avoided for years.

You are more than just your job role

Eight months on, the worker’s grief over the job loss has softened, even though it hasn’t entirely disappeared. She now sees herself as more than just her previous job role: a writer, a parent, a partner, and an individual outside of work.

That change of heart and spirit didn’t come easily. It came through with much emotional and mental discomfort. And that might be the real takeaway: losing a job hurts even when expected. Even when prepared. Ignoring that feeling only delays the inevitable.

A more practical approach is to acknowledge a job loss early. Give yourself time and space to process it. Let it run its course, because a job may end in a day or some day, but the pain and meaning attached to it takes longer to heal and untangle.

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Read related: ‘The most useful thing a senior told me at work’ — Workers share the advice that ‘stuck with them until today’

This article (‘Who am I without my work?’ — Singapore worker grieves after losing her job and the identity it gave her) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

“I started doing photography as a way to express things I don’t understand or to convey a message I’m having a hard time explaining,” Austn Fischer says. “I often work in quite a backwards way, knowing exactly what I want to arrange in front of the camera but struggling to understand the significance in my life until I am able to reflect on it after.”

The Wisconsin-born, London-based photographer taps into fashion as performance, considering how our garments, style, and gestures convey parts of our identities. Contrast is key in Fischer’s work, and it emerges through unusual pairings like lace ruffs atop athletic garb or an angular, black gown with a dainty, horse-shaped wire armature. Whether a portrait or a more conceptual composition, each work harnesses an exuberant sense of play and homes in on our ability to remake ourselves anew.

“Growing up, I had a lot of questions around my sexuality and my own experience as a man. I naturally gravitated towards fashion because of the story clothing can convey in an image,” he adds. “The colours, shape, fabric, and the way clothing wraps around a model create a unique conversation around identity and the body.”

Fischer has collaborated with a range of editorial and commercial clients, shooting Ai Weiwei with a milkshake for The New Statesman, for example, and David Byrne seemingly under oath for Crack Magazine. Whether working on a personal project or a commissioned series, the photographer transforms a largely black-and-white palette that could appear harsh into scenes exuding warmth and softness.

Better understanding his own emotions is Fischer’s priority at the moment, following a series of painful experiences, both personal and professional, that have influenced what and how he’s creating. “Recently, I spent two weeks from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. painting a wall in a church white over and over to understand patience and reflect on myself. I’m working a lot on understanding emotion and myself through putting my body through different tasks or challenges,” he tells Colossal.

Explore more of Fischer’s portfolio on his website and Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Contrast Reigns in Austn Fischer’s Conspicuous Black-and-White Photos appeared first on Colossal.

On the top floor of Buffalo AKG Art Museum’s Gundlach Building, a vast body of work from 58 artists comes together for Let Us Gather In a Flourishing Way. The impressive ensemble is both a survey of contemporary Latinx painting and a lively dialogue between a spectrum of artists with diverse backgrounds, experiences, identities, languages, and creative mediums.

Let Us Gather In a Flourishing Way is a major exhibition that has slowly unfolded over the course of several years. Curator Andrea Alvarez—the architect and driving force behind the project—has spent much of this time immersed in research and collaborating closely with each artist throughout the process, refining every detail of the show.

The exhibition’s title alludes to former U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera’s titular poem. Oscillating between English and Spanish while employing lush imagery of flora and fauna, the poem itself—like the survey—is an exuberant celebration of community and cultural convergence. He writes:

cielo de calor and wisdom to meet us
where we toil siempre
in the garden of our struggle and joy
let us offer our hearts a saludar our águila rising
freedom

The show traces this poetic rhythm in its spatial design. Herrera’s stanzas greet visitors at each entrance and throughout its galleries, establishing tone and providing context for what lies ahead.

Although the exhibition is organized into seven themes, Alvarez highlights its intrinsically flowing nature, noting that even if the collection were rearranged, the show would still hold together. In a walkthrough, it became clear that space was central to the viewing experience, leaving room for visitors to engage with the works on their own terms, much like the exhibition’s overarching focus on gathering and bolstering free-flowing conversation.

In Moises Salazar Tlatenchi’s “Cruising Queens,” a boat of five faceless figures and an American flag sail icy waters. Reminiscent of 18th-century America, the figures wear powdered wigs and tricorne hats. Finished with a dense layer of glitter and a daintily crocheted lavender frame, the artist’s glamorous materials—and the existence of brown figures in this context—subvert American history. “Cruising Queens” is placed within the exhibition’s New Histories section, which focuses on retelling personal, cultural, and global histories.

Colossal readers might also recognize Eamon Ore-Giron’s tessellated abstractions in “Talking Shit with Ilapa (variation I),” Guadalupe Maravilla’s mixed-media techniques in “Pupusa Retablo,” and Firelei Báez’s vibrant portraits bursting with floral motifs in “Mawu-Lisa (I build my language out of rocks).” Known for deconstructing colonial structures within her work, Báez turns toward the transatlantic slave trade, invoking deity Mawu-Lisa, a critical figure in the culture and religion of the Fon people in West Africa, who were brought to the Caribbean by force.

Bodies & Figures denotes another section of the show, highlighting “representations of and by marginalized people, considering the importance of the body, and who is or isn’t seen in an image,” the catalog says. One such work is Salomón Huerta’s triptych of untitled canvases. Through the absence of figurative human subjects within the paintings, visitors experience an intimate representation of the artist’s father.

“Huerta’s father protected the family in their home in Ramona Gardens, a violent housing project in East Los Angeles,” the museum label reads. “At night, he would set his .38-caliber revolver on the bedside table and ask Huerta to bring him a snack—often a concha or a glass of milk.” Disrupting expectations of traditional portraiture, the artist evokes something that feels deeply tender and human-centered—without the presence of a body.

At the same time, Let Us Gather In a Flourishing Way begs the question: how do identity and place shape each other? Los Angeles-based artist Alfonso Gonzalez Jr. turns to the rich visual language of signage. A meticulous technique passed down from his father’s professional career in commercial sign painting, Gonzalez has developed an enduring relationship with East Los Angeles’ emblematic advertisements and billboards, often reflecting Chicano culture. In “Abogados Tierra Caliente (Billboard),” the artist underscores the inherent connection between local landscapes and one’s selfhood, and an interesting relationship emerges between public commercial objects, personal portraits, and the museum itself.

Chicago-based Yvette Mayorga’s strikingly pink composition, “The Brunette Latinx Self Portrait After Francois Boucher’s “The Brunette Odalisque” c. 1745,” is affixed to a wall in the show’s cluster of Pinturx works, which are described as “contemporary Latinx approaches to traditional painting genres like still life and portraiture.” The artist’s distinctive technique of piping acrylic paint embodies themes of labor, femininity, and memory. Mayorga’s unconventional methods are an example of newer approaches to portraiture and complement the artist’s nods to Baroque and Rococo art.

Included in this grouping of nontraditional painting methods are other artists previously featured on Colossal, such as Sarah Zapata’s textile columns, made from handwoven cloth and various fibers. Installed leaning against a wall or protruding downward from the ceiling, her structures convey instability—a reflection of the current climate we find ourselves in. Narsiso Martinez also makes an appearance with “Checker Leading the Crowd,” made with charcoal on his distinctive cardboard produce box background, calling attention to labor.

In an anchoring room of the exhibition, “Promised Land” by Patrick Martinez spans 16 feet wide, redolent of a landscape’s sweeping view. Acrylic, neon, stucco, spray paint, and ceramic tile are just some of the layers that sit atop each other in the mixed-media work. Martinez ruminates on his native Los Angeles and the facade of “paradise” amid an ever-changing cultural landscape marked by gentrification and financial marginalization. Abstracted and washed-out structures, spray-paint marks inspired by graffiti, and an archival family photo collage represent the passage of time and the act of constantly rebuilding. “Promised Land” is part of the exhibition’s Land/tierra section, which highlights “Latinx approaches to landscape and the built environment, thinking about land and tierra and their rapid change.”

As a whole, the boundary-pushing exhibition comes together in a chorus of dialogues, mediums, backgrounds, and experiences. The Caribbean and Latin American diaspora is complex, and each artist remains distinct—resisting an external flattening into a monolithic identity. Let Us Gather In a Flourishing Way is a celebration of contrasts and connections and a necessary counterbalance in the glaring face of division.

The exhibition is on view through September 6, when it will travel to the Des Moines Art Center, the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle. Public programming—workshops, artist talks, tours with poet Juan Felipe Herrera, and more—is slated to accompany the show’s run, so keep an eye out for events on the museum’s website.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article ‘Let Us Gather In a Flourishing Way’ Convenes 58 Artists to Survey Contemporary Latinx Painting appeared first on Colossal.