Disrupting the Social Class Stigma in London’s Top Art Institutions
Navigating the art world is a multifaceted and nuanced task that requires knowledge of the trade and an understanding of the often unspoken hierarchy. With gatekeepers, tastemakers, and the fear of your objects being “placed” into the wrong collection or flipped by an unfavourable dealer, there’s a lot to unpack for anyone daring to enter the often unapproachable gates.
To further the conversation surrounding the lack of acknowledgement for working-class artists, MADE IN BED’s Mithra Stevens spoke with Christoph Jones and Seren Metcalfe about their experiences as working-class artists whilst studying at two of London’s top art institutions, and the resulting establishment of their own communities aimed at fostering a true sense of belonging.
Source: Working Class Creatives Database website.
The RCA Working Class Collective was founded by Jennifer McMillan and Christoph Jones and is open to all students from the Royal College of Art. The two started the collective out of a lack of community. Jennifer is from a town in the North of England called Barrow-in-Furness and her accent is identifiable as so. She and Christoph both acknowledge that this means she is treated differently and brings up questions regarding the class divide and its prevalence. Further, Christoph previously studied at Oxford Brooks and was aware of the class appropriation in the way students chose to dress and act. Christoph says it was “seen as rebellious and edgy to dress as someone who comes from a poorer background.” In a scene where it is often considered cool to appropriate the style of the working class from the latest fashion labels and vintage shops, the class divide is still ever present.
Christoph Jones: In contemporary art practice people are quite good at hiding their wealth and their privilege. It is incredibly trendy to appropriate the aesthetics of poverty and the working class.
Source: RCA Working Class Collective’s Instagram, foregrounding works by their members.
Top Row: Patricia Peterson.
Bottom Row: Jennifer McMillan.
Jennifer McMillan, I Am Julien, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist.
Similarly, Seren Metcalfe started The Working Class Creatives Database (WCCD) in 2020 during her final years at the Slade to create a sense of community in an institution that largely avoids conversations surrounding class. The WCCD soaks up a lot of students outside of university institutions and Christoph himself is a member.
Seren Metcalfe: There were a small handful of working-class students and probably two or three with a regional accent, which felt quite alienating. At the time, I felt like the work that was the most accessible to me and also felt the most real and truthful was that of working-class creatives. Within my own practice, it’s important for me to make my work relatable and put a lot of myself into it. For me the best artwork isn’t about being cool or creating something trendy that might sell, it’s about creating an experience and representing a moment in time and history.
Seren Metcalfe.
Christoph also spoke passionately about how working-class people deserve to be recognised and their struggle acknowledged, as they have worked just as hard, if not harder, to get to where they are in the art world.
CJ: We haven’t had generations of familial wealth to pay our way forward. During the lockdowns in London, the wealthy students all rented their own studio spaces, some of which cost more than I pay for rent, and they can do it easily.
In the Fine Art university setting, wealth advantage is incredibly useful. When we consider that in the academic setting if a student pays someone to write their essay for them, this is seen as plagiarism. However, when art students can afford to outsource their work and pay a fabricator to make their pieces for them, they’re at a massive advantage.
Christoph Jones, Who Owns What?, 2018. Wood frame, glass, inkjet print on paper, 394 x 304 x 26 mm. Image courtesy of the artist.
One of the reasons the RCA Working Class Collective was started was to bring awareness to this injustice and also allow for working-class students to feel a sense of comradery when their work is being compared to outsourced, professionally made art.
CJ: If someone goes around a degree show and they see work and there is not as much of it, it’s more amateurishly made, it’s made by the artist themselves and not by a professional…Rather than thinking that person isn’t a good artist, consider that maybe everyone else had a massive advantage that they did not have access to and why is that?
Source: RCA Working Class Collective Instagram.
In May 2022, the RCA Working Class Collective campaigned to highlight the attitude of the RCA towards students by revealing that they were limiting access to campus and studios to host Rishi Sunak for a private event. The RCA closed their doors on their own students to preference the Tori MP, who said that “musicians and others in the arts should retrain and find other jobs.”
CJ: One thing I’m really hoping for, and it was especially good throughout this campaign, is to get shared by a lot of people who are associated with different universities. LGBTQ societies and lecturers from other universities are following us on Instagram now. In every university, you have a conservative society, an LGBTQ society, the wine and cheese society–maybe that’s just because I studied at Oxford. What I’m hoping to inspire is a working-class society. It should be ubiquitous in universities. Just that fact alone. If there was a working-class society in every major university in the country, you would see, within a year or two, the amount of class consciousness coming out of students and academia. It would just skyrocket. To have an acknowledgement that this exists, even if the societies are not particularly radical and are not putting on events every month, even if they are just there and they do their own thing. The fact that, on the list of societies on the university union website, there could be the working-class society–that would be a big deal.
The RCA Working Class Collective Summer Show will be running from 6-14 August. Opening hours: 12 pm-6 pm. See Instagram for the private view and special event details.
SM: When I started the Working Class Creatives Database, there was a rise in working-class voices on Instagram at the time. I wanted to create a space where we could talk about our experiences together and create a community, so the database started off purely as an Instagram page. I had no idea what it would be or turn into as it was just a support network and a platform to share the work of working-class creatives. It became more and more popular so I decided to build a website so people could find said Working Class Creatives easier and those creatives could sign up as members and have a profile. At the time I didn’t realise how big the need was for something like this. I got together a core group of Working-Class creatives who were interested in volunteering their time to get the database up and running. One of those was Chanelle who now co-runs the database with me. We started doing Instagram takeovers where our members could show their work to our followers for a week. We also introduced recommendation posts and opportunity posts really focusing on sharing information and resources.
Source: Working Class Creatives Database website.
Source: Working Class Creatives Database website.
Through speaking with Christoph Jones, Jennifer McMillan, and Seren Metcalfe, it’s clear that there is a lack of support and acknowledgement for working-class artists in art institutions in London. These individuals are taking the initiative to create communities for fellow working-class students to feel a sense of belonging and comradery when faced with the privilege that wealth brings to the practice of art.
Patricia Petersen, Untitled, 2022. Glass, 12.5 x 8.5 x 22.3 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
Thank you to Christoph Jones, Jennifer McMillan, Seren Metcalfe, and all those participating in and continuing to foster a sense of community through the RCA Working Class Collective and the WCCD on behalf of MADE IN BED.
Mithra Stevens
Features Co-Editor, MADE IN BED