Who does not envy with us is against us: a conference on working-classness as method in creative practice

(co-convened by Maria Fusco and Beth Hughes, Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, 10 April 2026)

review by Derek Horton

A recent report by Create London and Arts Emergency on inequalities in the creative industries identified that only 18% of people working in music, performing and visual arts come from a working-class background. As the barriers to entry get higher and the costs and debt burden of higher education get greater, that shamefully small proportion will only shrink still further.

Throughout a long career in the visual arts and university education I have always been conscious of my working-class origins. Consciously proud of them, determined to retain my regional accent and my connections to the working-class society that formed my values and interests, but conscious also that economically, culturally, and socially, I am more often than not surrounded by people who live in another world. As a straight, white man, my ‘otherness’ in this context is of course not magnified in the way that it is for so many, and my awareness of the intersectionality of disadvantage and exclusion has increased with the knowledge and experience that has accrued over many years.

“Class bites into everything we do in art and so the process of confronting it must be worked out among ourselves. To do this we will need to talk a lot more about class. And for this to be successful, the deaf ears to class cannot dominate the rooms and pages in which the question of class must be raised as a problem for art.”

So wrote Dave Beech, in his essay Talking in Class, in Art Monthly no. 489, September 2025. Happily there were absolutely no deaf ears to class at Who does not envy with us is against us: a conference on working-classness as method in creative practice, convened by Maria Fusco and Beth Hughes for the Working-class British Art Network at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool in April 2026, not least because here, for once, working-class artists filled the room. That was pretty much a unique experience for me, and I know for many others in the room, and it made the day an emotional one.

The event’s brilliance lay in all the contributors’ ability to engage the audience with everything that is normally absent from academic conferences, everything customarily elided by theoretical perspectives and middle-class politesse. (As Maria Fusco succinctly put it, this conference was for those who have a sophisticated vocabulary but sometimes prefer to say 'fuck'!) The day was filled with an unusual degree of humour; sometimes bleak and self-deprecating, more often at the expense of the middle-class pretension and entitlement so pervasive in the art world. Unapologetic subjectivity usurped the often alienating detachment of academic objectivity that normally dominates academic presentations, as the invited contributors passionately shared their profoundly personal experiences in ways that clearly resonated with those of the audience. This mutually empathetic relationship between speakers and audience pervaded the day and played a big part in making it such a unique experience.

United by this as we were, the day was no simple assertion of class solidarity, rather a celebration of the diversity of working-class experience. Feminist and queer perspectives were foregrounded; a range of very different childhood and educational experiences were described; and the contributors worked within and across genres and media including painting, photography, sculpture, performance, filmmaking, writing, music, stand-up comedy and more.

This kind of positivity is easily and often undermined when we are confronted by the entitlement and sense of superiority that is prevalent in so many parts of the artworld in which we have to fight to find our place. It was encouraging to be reminded by Dave Beech at the end of the day that, rather than succumbing to working-class imposter syndrome, we would do well to recognise that what we really suffer from is the consequence of middle-class belonging syndrome.

The day didn’t pass without some reservations though. I was uncomfortable, as I often am at so many artworld events, at the whiteness of the room. The reasons are complex of course, and related to the very barriers to inclusion that were the subject of the conference, but with notably few exceptions (and interestingly nearly all of those were invited speakers), this was a gathering of the white working-class. It brought to mind an observation made by the photographer and writer Jonny Pitts at another Working-class British Art Network event recently, that when he’s invited to speak about class he’s often the only Black person present, and at events where he’s invited to speak about Blackness, he’s often the only working-class person in the room.

This was, rightly, and as I already said, joyfully, a celebratory event that completely punctured the myths inherent in middle-class stereotypes of working-class life, and as such was immensely valuable and all too rare, so I understand that no-one would have wanted to bring down the mood or, worse still, reinforce or contribute to negative stereotypes. But from my perspective, a significant elephant in the room was any considered critique of negative aspects of working-class culture. My working-class dad was by no means alone amongst his peers and workmates in his racist attitudes or in the fact that he voted Tory. And my working-class mom’s homophobia was not only upsetting but also seemed deeply at odds with her passionate pacifism. Regardless of the arguments, I loved my parents, and hold them dear in my memory. Their culture and values were not exceptional (as borne out by the success of Reform UK amongst working-class voters, or the millions of working-class Americans who helped elect Trump) but undeniably they reflected class alienation, economic and educational disadvantage, and susceptibility to popular media (mis)representations. My parents’ attitudes did not make me ashamed of my class, nor wish in any way to disown my origins, but they did make me angry, and still do. And so, while I remain proudly working-class, that anger was the beginning of a need to find a more tolerant milieu and a more nuanced attitude to my working-class allegiances. It has left me profoundly sceptical of any adherence to a kind of class exceptionalism or blindly sentimental assumptions about ‘working-class values’.

We badly need to celebrate working-class artists, to counter the crass stereotypes that still prevail in the middle-class art world, and to come together in joyous solidarity. We need to assert with pride that we’re here to stay and, as Michael Dean put it in his stirring talk, “we’re gan fucking nowhere!” This conference epitomised that spirit, and Maria Fusco, Beth Hughes, and every one of the speakers* deserve our immense gratitude for that. So, whilst accepting that this rare day of collective pride may not have been the occasion for it, if we are to fully acknowledge the intersectional complexities in our exclusion, and avoid romanticising working-classness, we might need to temper our celebration with a degree of introspection, and a self-critical approach to some of our own assumptions too.

* Full list of speakers:

Leanne Green, Maria Fusco, Hannah Perry, Paul Clinton, Damien O’Connell, Michael Dean, Julia Rosenstock, Jacqueline Donachie, Jessie Jones, Kelly O’Brien, Michelle Hannah, Marley Starskey Butler, Mike Pinnington, Bharti Parmar, Belinda Scarlett, Twayna Mayne, Caitlin Shepherd, Matthew Wayne Parkin, Deirdre O’Neill, Dani Child, Jade Bradford, Stuart Whipps, Adam Benmakhlouf, Dave Beech.

Images used with the permission of the conference convenors.