Yorkshire based artists Grace Clifford and Jim Brook are the recipients of the first Working Class Creatives Database (WCCD) residency at YSP and will spend 2 weeks on site in October 2023. This award was open to applications for members of the WCCD and was selected in collaboration between YSP and WCCD. The residency is an opportunity for working class artists who have faced social and economic barriers to develop and move forward with their practice. Research such as the Panic! Report, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, has identified class origin as one of the most significant barriers to the culture sector.

Grace Clifford has built a practice that often utilises intensive labour processes to reconcile with considerations around personal and shared heritages and experiences. Born in Birmingham and now settled in Sheffield, she reflects on the connections between the two areas of industry. Moving her practice forward, she is exploring the more immediate yet often unacknowledged moments and traces within these class associated environments. How do these subconscious behaviours and residues become synonymous to class? She is currently developing and collecting a body of work considering this.

Jim Brook lives and works in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. In 2020 he graduated with an MA from Leeds Arts University, having previously completed his undergraduate study at the institution in 2018. Brook uses the power of the ready-made, sculpture, photography and textiles to explore his lived experience, masculinity, home, folk culture and class. Through his art, he hopes to provide a voice and a platform for those who are often disregarded and overlooked, whilst gaining a better understanding of his own experience and life.