Grace Clifford is one of the recipients of the Working Class Creatives Database (WCCD) x YSP 2023 residency, along with artist Jim Brook.
Grace 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.
We have had long standing intentions to show our work together and we are using the residency to consolidate this, sharing the time and space at YSP to develop concepts and plan for our show. The residency would be a springboard for us both collaboratively, as well as individually.
- Grace Clifford and Jim Brook
The WCCD x YSP residency is 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.
