Women Working Class Podcasts

Introduction to the project

by Fox Irving

Supported by the Arts Council and Heart of Glass — an arts organisation based in St Helens in the North West of England, these podcasts form the third phase of the Women Working Class project, which focuses on the lived experience of female working-class artists in the UK, and investigates how art, space, and class interact to reinforce or subvert dominant values. For the first phase of the podcast series, each episode has been created as a partnership between one member from our founding project — the South East Women Working Class Group — and one member of our more recently established North West Group.

Some podcasts feature invited guests and some are simply the two artists having a conversation, as they respond to the work ‘Feeling Class’ by academic writer Beverley Skeggs as a provocation, and share their personal experiences of surviving as Working Class Artists. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Arts Council for their support through each phase of this project, the Live Art Development Agency in London who supported the first group in 2020, and to Heart of Glass, whose support from the second project onwards has enabled me to take the project back to my roots in the North West, and to expand the conversation through this current project.

Please see the show notes for more details about each of our artists and links to any specific resources mentioned in the podcasts. I hope you enjoy the first part of this series. There is humour, there’s sometimes swearing and there is a wonderful richness in each of their stories, as told in their own voices. I hope you are as inspired by them as I have been.

Check out the 8 episodes of the season 1 podcasts here

Fox Irving is a South East based, Liverpool born, working class artist. Their art is shaped by the liminal, precarious identity they inhabit as queer/femme/working class. With a playful, D.I.Y approach informed by activist strategies and centering collaboration, Fox investigates how art can be used by marginalised communities that they are part of as a tool of empowerment.