Art and Class: Co-ordinating across the Learning Fund and External Learning

Learning Fund Case Study: Scottish Artists Union (SAU)- Lowlands and Uplands

SAU delivered an Art and Class course at the Community Wellbeing Collective in Wester Hailes, Edinburgh. The course was designed to tackle one of the most significant yet under-represented issues in contemporary art: the barriers facing working class artists and art workers. The Community Wellbeing Collective is a grassroots organisation that serves working class audiences and presents work by working class artists, and as such was selected strategically as a venue for the first session. Hosting the session in this venue meant discussions were rooted in the realities of communities mostly affected by class-based exclusion.

The first session introduced participants to the course’s central premise: that class is one of the most significant factors determining who can access and succeed in contemporary art careers in the UK. Despite its major impact on artistic production and industry participation, class inequality is actively ignored in art education and professional discourse. The session attempted to remedy this by providing participants with frameworks for understanding the economic structures that shape class composition within the UK art sector. Participants examined their own positions within class structures and considered how these dynamics affect their professional lives. The session then gave participants structured time to consider and collaborate on practical strategies for combating class-based exclusion that they experience.

This was a first for SAU LUPS, as the course was designed as a collaboration between the SAU Learning Project and external learning partnerships. The first session was followed by an ambitious external learning collaboration with Arika, a political arts organization connecting artistic production with social change and, A Revolting Class, a new organisation focused on critical education class-based education in the UK. This workshop took place in Glasgow over two days and was attended by 17 participants working in the arts in Scotland. It focused on detailed understandings of class inequality in the sector and how these are reinforced through different forms of capital. Tutors introduced participants to renowned sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s framework of different forms of capital - Economic, Cultural, Social and Symbolic - to understand how workers in the cultural sector often have contradictory class locations due to high amounts of Cultural, Social and Symbolic capital but very low amounts of Economic capital. This workshop series will continue with additional sessions and is an important step for SAU to bring greater class consciousness to the sector and raise awareness of the barriers faced by working class artists in Scotland, with the aim of creating a stronger voice for working class artists to demand better conditions within the industry.