Hertford Arts Festival

About

Is classlessness a distant dream? A dream of equality, tolerance, communal spirit; a world that doesn’t scrutinize taste. All classes are segregated into ranks of power, income and occupation within this ‘social scale’. I question the stereotypical shibboleths that indicate an individual’s class and whether they are warped to adapt to the class that the individual would prefer to be accepted into.

Being at the bottom of the scale is intimidating, the fear of being insignificant. As a member of the lower class, I can empathise with this fear. I am concerned with this modern compulsion to ‘climb’ up the scale and fabricate an expensive image using materialistic items, in order to be accepted into society. Ostentatious chunky gold chains and lower priced high fashion brands are purchased by the lower class and flaunted under the nose of the higher classes in order to gain some sort of social status. This self-deception is the incentive behind my pieces, the rituals that the working class perform in order to feel accepted.

I make poor art. I use food as a sculptural material with a sense of irony. I’m wasting food to draw attention to the less wealthy, and to question whether the world would be a better place if the class system could fall.