Speaker: Who Does Not Envy with Us Is Against Us: A Conference on Working-Classness as Method in Creative Practice

10 April 2026
Everyman Theatre, Liverpool
Free (booking esential)
︎︎︎ more info here

I’ll be speaking about cultural capital in the gallery, the intersections of class and accent, and the ways in which these things might manifest in the artworld.

The conference: Working-classness as method is an approach that addresses working-class experience, values and modes of knowledge as generative forms of understanding that resist institutional authority and challenge dominant hierarchies. We feel this is an urgent subject, strongly held and socio-culturally opaque.

The Working Class British Art Network was founded in 2020 to challenge the historic marginalisation of working-class artists by recognising their practices as essential to understanding contemporary British art. By enabling artists to lead conversations about class through their work, the network seeks to build a more equitable and representative arts sector. The network was supported by a British Art Network Research Group bursary.

This conference is being co-convened by Beth Hughes and Maria Fusco.

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In conversation with Maria Fusco

28 February 2025
Tate Liverpool, Mann Island, Liverpool L3 1BP
6:30-8pm
£7.50 / £5 for Members and Tate Collective

As part of my research into class, I’ve invited the award-winning arts writer Maria Fusco to Liverpool for a reading from, and discussion of, her recent book on working-classness.

Her new anthology, Who does not envy with us is against us (published by Broken Sleep Books, 2023) is a brilliant collection of essays about growing up working-class.

Fusco is a Belfast-born writer based in Scotland, and Professor of Interdisciplinary Writing at the University of Dundee, with a PhD awarded from the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at The University of Edinburgh. In 2025, she will be a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, in the Centre for Visual Culture. Fusco has previously held posts at Goldsmiths College, University of Edinburgh and Northumbria University.

She writes fiction, critical and theoretical texts, and for opera and film. The Happy Hypocrite journal of art writing, founded by Fusco and published by Book Works, ran for twelve issues (2008-21).

Who does not envy with us is against us will be available to purchase during the event.

︎︎︎ Book tickets here: tate.org.uk
︎︎︎ mariafusco.net


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Email: mike@thedoublenegative.co.uk
Call: +44(0)7972528942

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