Creative Class

Get Involved

Are you a woman/girl, trans or non-binary person aged 14-24 living in Merseyside? Want to take part in trips to cities around the UK to see exhibitions and shows? Be part of a new project for the Independents Biennial in Liverpool this September?

Or do you know a young person who'd love to be part of this project?

Sign up now - participation is free!

With statistics showing that fewer working class people than ever are working in the arts (just 8% of those who work in Film, TV and Radio are from a working class background found a Channel 4 report, 2024), artist Fox Irving is exploring and exposing the systems that keep us in our place, social mobility and class.

Through Creative Class, we are identifying the key milestones or transition periods for young people when making decisions about their career, and supporting them to think about options they may not have previously considered. The project incubates and celebrates creativity, and showcases different ways of thinking/learning about the arts and what art can do, to help young people make informed decisions about their futures.

This project is designed to foster inclusive spaces for women, girls, nonbinary and trans people from working class areas to access the arts and provide mentoring opportunities for people who experience feelings of not belonging in arts and cultural spaces.

The project is co-produced with an intersectional and youth-led lens to create a non-hierarchical mentoring community, with collaborators bringing their own shared lived experiences. The majority of young people engaged in the project live or access education in St Helens.

Youth Advisory Group

A key strand of this programme since January 2024 has been the development of our Youth Advisory Group; a cohort of 18-25 year old young women, girls, nonbinary and trans people from St Helens. This group helps shape the programme in collaboration with Fox, their ideas influencing how mentoring might work, and shaping opportunities to work with Heart of Glass and the sector in the future.

Between 2024-2025, our Youth Advisory Group visited arts and community organisations across the North West taking part in discussions and workshops with artists and arts practitioners to encourage learning, conversation and creativity:

• In Liverpool, we visited the Granby Winter Garden, Liverpool Community Print Station, Metal and Squash Nutrition to find out more about community based projects in Toxteth. During this visit we tried our hand at screen printing and zine making.

• In London, we visited Whitechapel Gallery for two exhibitions: ‘An Awkward Relation’ by Sonia Boyce and Peter Kennard’s ‘Archive of Dissent’. We also heard from the new director of Live Art Development Agency, as well as visiting the Study Rooms and exploring the library.

Learning Circles

From March to September 2025, the Youth Advisory Group is now collaborating with Women Working Class to design and start to realise a non-hierarchical learning community, for themselves and with young people aged 14-16 in college or high school.

As part of the learning circles, we have continued visits to local, national and community based organisations and events including trips to The Whitworth in Manchester, a Common Wealth performance in Bradford and Liverpool to see the Biennial and Independents Biennial.

• In Manchester, we visited ‘Women in Revolt’ exhibition at the Whitworth and Queer Lit (Europe's largest LGBTQ+ bookshop). To reflect on these experiences we made a series of collages based on the exhibition's written interpretation.

• We also travelled to Bradford to immerse ourselves in the world of Common Wealth’s new, youth-led performance called ‘Public Interest’, an immersive play centred around and challenging the injustice of joint enterprise.

• Most recently, we attended the preview of Liverpool Biennial and experienced some of the Independent’s Biennial with a focus on public realm works. This included a talk by Turner Prize winning artist, Elizabeth Price.

Independents Biennial Project

Across summer 2025, we will be working on a project for Independents Biennial co-produced and led by the young people we are working with. These groups are supported by the mentors from Women Working Class to produce a creative response to the project and the experiences of working class young people who are interested in creative futures. The project will culminate in a public output in September 2025.