HEADER IMAGE Kelly Wu ‘The State in Which We Are’, 2023 courtesy of Working Class Creatives Database
After visiting GLORY BOX, the first central London exhibition from the Working Class Creatives Database (WCCD), I kept thinking about the words ‘inherited’ and ‘collection’, and how off they can feel when applied to working-class lives. In art, those terms usually signal value – inherited wealth, inherited taste, inherited networks – or neat boxes of things, displayed under clean lighting, far removed from the mess that made them. But for the artists in GLORY BOX; Grace Clifford, Harley Roberts, and Kelly Wu, inheritance is something more physical. It’s grief, habits, and leftovers; it’s materials gathered because that’s what’s available.
Presented by the WCCD and hosted at Sadie Coles HQ, the show exists on the edge of the commercial art world. There’s no grand entrance, no dealer buzz. Instead, GLORY BOX builds something slower and more persistent, shaped by repetition and memory. The title nods to the 1994 Portishead track, but also to the box bedroom, the storeroom, the cupboard where things are packed away and returned to later.
Following the exhibition’s private view opening on 17th July, BRICKS spoke to the show’s artists as well as the director of WCCD about what it means to collect when you’ve never had the luxury to discard, and how classed experience lives on in the hands, materials, and rhythms of their work.
GLORY BOX sits on the periphery of the commercial gallery world. How does that in-between space influence the work you make, and how you hope it’s seen?
Seren Metcalfe, Director of the Working Class Creatives Database: GLORY BOX exists on the periphery of the commercial gallery world, not because we’ve been explicitly told we don’t belong, but because we come from a different starting point. We’ve been welcomed with open arms in this space, but there are broader dynamics at play: like a lack of access to the same education or opportunities, and cultural experiences that shape how we engage with art. It’s also about the financial realities, not being able to afford studios, or finding the time to make work while juggling other responsibilities. The sacrifices we make to be artists are part of that story.
However, this “in-between” space isn’t just about limitations. It’s also about being resourceful. As the show text mentions, we carry an inherited labour ethic and a drive to work hard and make do with what we have. This energy is what keeps us going, even when we don’t have the same resources or support systems as others. We’re constantly negotiating the space we occupy, making things happen in ways that push the boundaries of what we’re expected to do.
We’ve been welcomed with open arms in this space, but there are broader dynamics at play: like a lack of access to the same education or opportunities, and cultural experiences that shape how we engage with art.
Seren Metcalfe
The show explores ideas of inheritance and collection through necessity rather than privilege. What are you personally trying to hold onto or pass down through your work?
Seren: I think I’m really drawn to the idea of emotional inheritance as a curator. For me, it’s about how working-class creatives often create very personal and revealing work, work that’s deeply tied to their upbringings, their cultures, their life experiences. There’s a lot of emotional processing that happens through art. I believe there’s real importance in telling an authentic and truthful story of life through that lens. Art should reflect the society, the place, and the time in which it’s made. If it’s not accessible to everyone, then how can it truly represent the world we’re living in?
Materials seem to hold a lot of weight in your practice. What draws you to the objects or fragments you use, and how do they carry meaning beyond the surface?
Harley Roberts, Artist: I was born and raised in a post-industrial-now-heroin town that in recent years has flourished, and continues to do so. I have inherited the weird, the obscene, the chronic illness, the greatest failures, the master musicians, the vistas, the landscape, the carcasses which lay within it. I am extremely privileged to be able to cut adrift and know with a whole heart that I am an artist, in a luxurious position. Whether I live or die, it will be on my terms, a freedom like no other. Being without privilege in the same way pollinates something beautiful within the artist; it is a privilege within itself. We who do the dirty work of the world are under no illusion of what it is really like – it’s filthy, vampiric, diabolically honest, diabolically unscrupulous, painful, and it feels very, very good. Therefore, we create the illusion with the materials available.
Since last year, I have been discreetly stealing and acquiring (through being gifted or trading) wooden doorstops – this routine of spotting a wedge and then deciding how to replace it, or steal it outright, became an exciting and regular routine in my art practice, one that happened more frequently than my trips to the studio.
Kelly Wu
There’s a strong sense of slowness and repetition throughout the show. How do rhythm or routine shape the way you think about or make work?
Kelly Wu, Artist: In particular, the two doorstops that I am showing are a good representation of a pattern in my way of working. Since last year, I have been discreetly stealing and acquiring (through being gifted or trading) wooden doorstops – primarily from cultural institutions such as Essex Libraries, the Slade School of Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, the National Gallery, and Antony Gormley’s studio. This routine of spotting a wedge and then deciding how to replace it, or steal it outright, became an exciting and regular routine in my art practice, one that happened more frequently than my trips to the studio. There was a sweet rhythm to how I used to slyly wriggle them into my bag, stand up, and let the door slam behind me. It was all quite lyrical, when I think back on it.
Being part of the Working Class Creatives Database, how has that community influenced your practice or shaped your visibility in the art world?
Kelly: I don’t want to be overly sappy here, but being part of Working Class Creatives has honestly been completely transformative to my practice and life. Chanelle and Seren have become such a powerful and inspiring duo in the art world. Alongside the great community of people I get to meet as a result of it, Seren has been amazing in finding opportunities for us to share our stories and our work. I feel honoured to be included in this show, with two other exceptional artists, Grace and Harley. I think back to being included in Gatherings nearly two years ago now, and how I was in a completely different place in both my life and practice. I feel as if we are all kind of evolving together. Sometimes I don’t completely understand what Seren sees in me. Nonetheless, I feel excited and happy to be on this journey with everyone, and I think the database will only get bigger and better as time goes on. I have always felt welcome here, and hope that the other members feel the same way.
This work is devoted to everything. It always is. To metal, to me, to men. I have grief for something that will never die. Devoted to the way – since I was a child – I’ve thought blood and metal smell the same. The scent lurks in my house. To the dirt I can’t get out of my fingertips.
Grace Clifford
The show describes glory as ‘devotional’ – to grief, to language, to scrap metal. What, for you, is this body of work devoted to?
Grace Clifford, Artist: This work is devoted to everything. It always is. To metal, to me, to men. I have grief for something that will never die. Devoted to the way – since I was a child – I’ve thought blood and metal smell the same. The scent lurks in my house. To the dirt I can’t get out of my fingertips.
How do you navigate placing personal or emotionally loaded materials into a commercial setting? Does that shift how you want audiences to engage with the work?
Grace: It can be very vulnerable, and requires care and understanding. I’m very attached to my works. Just before the show opened, I felt quite anxious and overwhelmed. Revealing parts of your psyche that you often feel obliged to bury, but also compelled to share, can be tricky to balance. I think this is why we produced the second text, or the rust text, to further inform the audience in a more informal way, beyond the black-and-white gallery text.
Follow the Working Class Creative Database, and find more information about GLORY BOX here.
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