The Class Ceiling Exhibition in Southampton and a Personal Tangent

The other day, I took a trip to Southampton to see The Class Ceiling Photography Exhibition. I try and visit John Hansard as much as I can as it's a great video gallery and I have seen a lot of work there that has inspired me! I wanted to see the class ceiling as my practice deals with themes of class, especially within my hometown. The exhibition is a series of photographs accompanied by individual audios on sound cloud that tell the stories behind the photographs, sweet and intimate. It highlights working class perspectives in Southampton from the present and the past as it takes in people from a range of ages. It was a small exhibit and feel it was elevated by the stories from the people that contributed the photographs. It brings light to the intoxicating nature of narrative and imagery especially when they tangle personal threads that look outward and question the wider world. 

   

                                 

The images were varied and of many differing perspectives and focused on different things. They mostly feature people but offer varied subliminal nods to relationships, friendships, family and youth. The photos I took of the exhibition are terrible but i also being stared at by an invigilator and felt rude so they were quick snaps. You can listen to the stories on SoundCloud while walking around the exhibit as small and minimal as it is. It can be listened to here: 

https://soundcloud.com/search?q=the%20class%20ceiling

That was my only take away from the exhibition it was so small. There were less than 20 photographs and all fairly small and felt that there needed to be more - much more. I know this exhibit was only allowed a selection, so they couldn't just shove as many people in as they could for the sake of it and you don't always have to go big to get your point across. It would have been amazing to see some photos bigger and ranges of sizes; with more of them peppered in a new layout. I still really enjoyed the images and the stories, they were reminiscent of childhood and had an amazing nostalgic texture of growing up. 

Surely there are more creative people in Southampton that are from working class backgrounds and not just from creative courses, but from other courses at the university too? Or does this highlight a wider issue happening in the UK. More and more people from working class backgrounds are being squeezed out of the creative sector and this has been on the decline for a while now, I read this study on it recently:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00380385221129953

It highlights how we are getting less and less people from working class backgrounds in the creative sector. Something that needs to change and I guess is reflected in the exhibition, that there are less creatives. I know there will be more people within that course, it's like the BA Fine Art here at Bournemouth, there's at least 100 people on the course. Where do they all go after? I know not everyones made for it and not everyone makes it in the creative world and that's fine. It just feels as though there are a lot of people taking these courses, but then never get the chance to go anywhere or pursue anything creative after. 

On another note as well, there is this huge rhetoric in mainstream in contemporary media that portrays the working class and people from poverty stricken areas as spectacles. It's no surprise to me that these have been on the rise in the past decade, while people from lower income and working class backgrounds are decreasing in these creative sectors. They have have the upper classes and the right wing medias putting them on the TV like zoo animals. I guess as well I've had a long distaste for programmes like Benefits Street, Skint and Can't Pay We'll Take It Away, they've always enforced this demonisation of people in poverty and lower income, portraying them as scum and scroungers. 

Visiting this exhibition has incited this urge for me to follow on more research of this, I have gone on this relevant tangent and i think it's something I possibly want to talk about and explore. It's come out of nowhere but this feeling and this distaste for these mainstream demonising narratives have never sat right with me. I'm gonna research this more...