Research

Pierre Bourdieu

According to the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the middle classes develop an appreciation of ‘high’ culture to mark themselves as different from the working classes (Bourdieu, 1984). This ‘cultural capital’ creates a cosy club that excludes others. High class tastes include the abstract painting that I am experimenting with.

Class appropriation

Working-class experiences can be victim to ‘class appropriation’ exploited for middle-class consumption or financial gain. At the same time we are failing to address the inequalities in society. Working classes are fair game for art; yet art and wider society remain dominated by the middle classes.

Sheffield’s story

Personal grafitti scrawled on the brutalist estate in Sheffield for example was co-opted by property developers (Byrne, 2016).

Beneath this was a tragic story - the lover’s plea - ‘I love you will you marry me’ written on the building never led to marriage. The woman Clare died. But the words were turned into a brand used to promote new mixed housing on the estate.

See: ‘The tragic story of Sheffield’s Park Hill bridge’, The Observer, 21 August.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2016/aug/21/tragic-story-of-sheffield-park-hill-bridge

Robin Hood Gardens

In 2009, meanwhile the V&A acquired a slice of Robin Hood Gardens, a demolished council estate in East London, as a piece of art (Turner, 2018). This was seen as distasteful by many - is it ok for middle classes to turn a symbolism of working class struggles into art? Should the working classes have a say in this?

The Robin Hood Gardens estate has been replaced by mixed social housing - half of which are earmarked as ‘affordable’. Is this really regeneration or gentrification? Many of the new homes will be too expensive for normal people.

See:

V&A acquires segment of Robin Hood Gardens council estate
East London council estate designed by Alison and Peter Smithson is considered an important example of brutalist architecture

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/nov/09/va-buys-three-storey-chunk-robin-hood-gardens-council-estate-alison-peter-smithson-brutalist-architecture

See also

Lived Brutalism: portraits from Robin Hood Gardens housing estate – in pictures

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/oct/22/lived-brutalism-portraits-from-robin-hood-gardens-housing-estate-in-pictures

Poverty safari

‘Poverty safari’ is how we look at poverty from afar, treating the working classes as a ‘species’ to be observed but then left unengaged and unempowered.

London artist paid £15k public money to spend a year in Glasgow for research project branded 'poverty safari'

Many expressed further anger at the decision to name the project ‘The Glasgow Effect’ - a term used to describe the poor life expectancy of working class Glaswegians.

See: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/london-artist-paid-15k-public-7117099

Research

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