Working Class Background Embodied

Costume design for contemporary dance performances made using upcycled clothes and materials.

Performances:

Sketches on Class III , Side Step Festival, Zodiak 10.2.2021.
Sketches on Class V premiere , Vinttikamari, Oulu Theatre 23.-27.11.2021.
Halkoo performance parade, Helsinki Day 11.6.2022.
Sketches on Class V, Viirus theatre, Helsinki 29.11 – 10.12.2022.

Working Class Background Embodied sheds light on the effects of class origin on a person’s physicality, experiences, and agency. The working group includes a wide array of artists who share an interest in working with class matters.

A worker and an academic intersect in my body. 

The initiative is an attempt to nurture different socioeconomic cultural backgrounds, to gain understanding of the effects of class on our choices and opportunities, to open up these themes and, most importantly, to address them in the context of body-based art. Through the initiative, the working group is trying to deconstruct the myth of equality, the assumption that everyone in Finland has the same opportunities to study, find employment, advance in their career, or to participate in discussions in society.

During the working process, five themes were highlighted as points of examination: shame, excess, not belonging, abundance and class pride. In addition, the initiative aims to advance the participation in art of people from different backgrounds, as well as  to place bodily and conceptual knowledge side by side.

Class drills itself into our flesh, gushes out through the sweat on our backs, lingers in our gaze, twists and turns in our insides.

The initiators of the project wanted to include makers of different ages and of different backgrounds in order to give voice to diverse experiences.  The process has included individuals from both suburban zones and rural areas; descendants of both Red and White Finland; individuals with a long career behind them and those only at the start of their working life; individuals from different family constellations and from different parts of the country.  The working group of 20 people has been running since 2018.    

For more information about the project visit:

 www.luokkahanke.com