What are the main barriers for people from working-class backgrounds in the creative industries?
Lots of issues come down to money and time. Art supplies, hobbies, music lessons, cultural experiences were definitely seen as luxuries when I was growing up and I’m sure this is still the case for many. From the moment you are born into a working class background, you are assigned a script – you have to climb towards a better life that money and capitalism is at the centre of. People aren’t allowed the space or time needed for creative experimentation or play.
In education, creative practices are taught quite early on as being linked to criticism – what’s right and what's wrong as per standards set by forces from above. But we shouldn’t even be putting this idea of being criticised for personal creative expression into young people’s heads. Creative practice needs to be taught as a human right. It’s inherent within us, and if we can’t express ourselves it can damage our sense of self, sense of our values, and identity. We need to teach young people that art, music and culture is not only joyful but a way to process our trauma, pain, to find our own meanings and make sense of our own stories.
There is an air of anxiety there around [this topic], but I think that is quite telling of some of the overarching issues with conversations around this subject – feeling like your opinions on the subject aren't valid or not having many opportunities to talk about this kind of stuff in the arts and cultural sector. So much of this isn't spoken about and often it's quite linked in with painful experiences. It's hard to make sense of it, so when you do engage in conversations around it, you feel like there's so much there that wants to come out. Where do you even start? And then you feel like you might sound stupid or you might feel misunderstood, so that puts people off sharing their experiences around it. The conversation is very closed-off to people who need it.
I think the distinctions between different social classes are not as easy as maybe they once were to point out because of the kind of jobs people do now. I spoke to an academic and she said you should talk about your experience as being a working class person, because too often we narrow the definition and that makes it so much harder to talk about.
This is something that I've really only just begun to come to terms with. You said something there that was really interesting about not narrowing it down. I don't think I've ever really fully understood or explored things that have affected me negatively because of my social class because I had a very traditional family structure. I'm from a low-income family and definitely from a working class background, but my parents were together so I had that kind of stability. It's quite linked to nationality for me because I wasn't born in the UK. My parents are from New Zealand and Norway so culturally, growing up, I was very different to everyone else who was in the same kind of social class as me. I always felt like an outsider in that respect. I like that term that you use: “narrowing it down”. That's exactly what I've done in respect to how I see my own story.
So how does your work and the organisation you represent help to bring more working class people into the arts?
Obviously, the main thing we do at Cobalt is we create opportunities for creativity and expression and put people on a stage, literally, to share their voice and their creativity. It's space for experimental, smaller things. It's art that's centred around equality and unity and bringing people together. There's not enough of these spaces that make room for that where it's not tied to commercialism and making money. The whole music scene in the UK is very capitalist-centric, and there's not much room for anything that doesn't serve that structure.
Jasmine Padgett works at Cobalt Studios in Newcastle
It's interesting to talk about that in the music industry right now because the commercialism is so much on show. One of the most prominent working class bands of the last 30 years has just announced a reunion and no working class people can afford to go and see it.
It's a sad world, isn't it? Grassroots music is just so overlooked now by mainstream society. Music has to start somewhere and it needs space to grow and develop. People need these experimental hubs where they can try things out and be free from judgement and explore their creativity in a safe space. It's just so important and capitalism is just squeezing these spaces out.
But it's all money. Nothing that we do at Cobalt adds up financially. We’ve never really had steady funding. We're always kind of toeing the line and it's very delicate all the time financially. Most of our live music loses money and it's just always navigating that and keeping our head above the water to keep providing these opportunities for people.
There's other things we do. We have a sliding scale for ticket options. Say we’ve got a Friday night gig. You can choose if you want to spend £8 or £10 or £14 based on what your income is, which we think gives people scope to choose whatever they like without being judged at the door. We do lots of donation tickets, especially for our educational stuff. And then we also have a “no one turned away for lack of funds” policy for most things, or sometimes we’ll just do an honesty box.
As Cobalt, what are the biggest challenges that you guys face in increasing access to the arts for young working class people and allowing them access to their own creativity?
I think we find it really hard to reach the right people in terms of diversifying our audiences because it’s hard to communicate what we do. If you're not putting the right thing on social media, people won’t feel like it's for them, and they are welcome to come. How do you communicate all that feeling that you get when you actually walk through the door here? When you come in here, it's so welcoming and warm and loving. It's a really safe community and it's beautiful. But how do you put that across online with a picture or words? Our biggest barrier is getting people through the door. Once they see it, and they're here, and they experience the beauty of it, they come back and back and back.
Ali Rashley was interviewed in another Kick Some Class articleThe point you made about reaching the right people came up in a previous interview. I was speaking to the lady who runs Television Workshop in Nottingham. She said the problem they face is that middle class parents have no problem finding places like that, but you have to work harder to find the working class people.
I think they don't seek it out themselves, because they don't feel like they have a right to it. That's deep-rooted into our society's infrastructure. It's all linked to everything. It's education, it's the government. It all comes back around to the root, the root of the problem, doesn't it?
And so, as you take stock of where things are with Cobalt, what is the future looking like?
It actually links back to reaching the right people. We've been applying for funding to try and develop an educational programme where we would actually take accessible workshops out into schools and communities in more economically deprived areas of Newcastle. We can say: “This is who we are. We come from Cobalt. These are musicians we work with. You can come to this space and explore these things more.” These are things they wouldn't be taught in traditional education, like electronic music or folk music. [The workshops would] highlight how little you really need to explore your creativity because you can do it with your voice or something as cheap as a tin whistle.
We do these events for free. You can come along too, because we have open improvisation sessions every Tuesday – pay as you feel. We've got an open mic night, which is pay as you feel. You could come down and join in with that.
So we want to introduce Cobalt to these places and show them what we do and who we are, and get them on the hook. So that's something we're really passionate about starting up. But again, it's capacity and money. We're always over-stretched here by what we can manage. If we can get funding, then we can pay local musicians from working class backgrounds to deliver these workshops and work with us closely on them. Alternative education opportunities are really important to us at the moment.
Another thing is that we have actually secured some funding to develop a youth music studio in the backyard. So that is going to be focused on providing opportunities for young people to come and learn to DJ and use the decks and record things, and explore their creativity that way. That'll be great. We just need to build it. It's really, really exciting.
What advice would you give to working class people who are hoping to make their way into the arts today?
In my own education, I've experienced a lot of being put down around my own creativity, and maybe being led down different paths, because I've been seen to be in a different kind of category – not by myself, but by educators or people who are different to me. And I always did better when I listened to my own intuition and did my own thing. I think when you try to express your creativity in that way and people tell you “oh no, that's not for you”, it damages your sense of self in a really subtle way that you don't really acknowledge when it's happening. The more it happens, you go inwards and inwards and inwards and inwards and then you just give up on it.
So my advice would be, when it comes to your creativity, just always trust your instincts and follow the things that interest you, even if you're not sure why they really interest you. There's probably a reason behind it, and you should always follow it. Just explore and play, and be free and improvise and treat your creativity as something that you should invest your time into. Don't let anybody tell you that it's not a worthwhile endeavour.
A lot of it is centred around education for me. I think the way that our society values culture needs to shift. We need to shift our views around it so creative practice is a human right that needs to be explored. People should be allowed time to explore it. We need to teach young people that it's a means of expression, not a means to serve capitalism. It really helps us make sense of our identity and our trauma. It helps us process painful things that have happened in our lives in a way that we can connect to other people in a meaningful way.
I think when we can connect in that way as a society, that's where we can grow wholesome communities that can lead this reform that society needs to change the educational system and change all the things that will pull people out of this place where culture isn't valued in the way it should be. The value that someone can get from expressing themselves through their creativity is immeasurable compared to anything else that they can get.
Find out more about Cobalt Studios by visiting their official website. Jasmine is also the owner and founder of The Ouseburn Market.
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