Emerging from discussions and embodiments among the three underclass artists from social-housing backgrounds, 4K or Feral explores the notion of ‘fidelity’ from a working-class, intersectional perspective.
Beyond the idea of ‘lo-fi’ as merely a co-optive or performative strategy employed by the design practices of the so-called creative class, or corporate propaganda, here we seek to examine what it means to work within the limitations of practice in a time of ongoing disaster by returning to what is available to the artists (often cheaply available media) and aligning with the ad hoc emergent.
By ‘tuning in’ as artists adrift between classes and codes, and questioning narratives around professional aesthetics and their imperatives to “overcome” our precarious (human) conditions to “succeed,” the works express nuance in the ecstasy and agony of underclass voices by ‘staying with the trouble’ of contemporary struggles – challenging mythologies of ‘working-classness’ that are often narrated from the outside by extractive social practice(s).
Exhibition room sheet and text available here.