Gloves Off: Stories from Cultural Collections & Galleries at the University of Leeds

Curating Class 4: Samantha Manton on ‘Lives Less Ordinary: Working-class Britain Re-seen'

“This wasn’t an exhibition of ‘working-class art’, but an attempt to reframe working-class experience by utilising a gaze from within, bringing together a plurality of working-class voices”.  Samantha Manton, curator of ‘Lives Less Ordinary: Working-Class Britain Re-seen' at Two Temple Place in 2025 talks about her methodologies and the decisions she made – consciously and unconsciously – in initiating and putting together the exhibition.  “I had a rolling list of the ways in which I felt working-class artists and subjects have had their nuanced experiences, perspectives and contributions misinterpreted, misrepresented and dismissed completely in the service of sustaining narrow, simplistic and derogatory views of working-class life.   “In some cases I narrated these oppressions directly, but in others it was simply about actively resisting the oppressive tendencies that artists had been subject to in the past.”   https://twotempleplace.org/exhibitions/lives-less-ordinary/ [https://twotempleplace.org/exhibitions/lives-less-ordinary/]  This content has been adapted from an illustrated talk, introduced by curator, researcher and founder of the Working Class British Art Network Beth Hughes, and recorded in front of a live audience at Curating Class: Rethinking Art Exhibitions Methodologies. This day of talks and discussions was hosted by the University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries in spring 2026 to coincide with the 2025-26 exhibition ‘[uz], [uz], [uz]: Artists from Working-Class Backgrounds’ at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery.  Co-produced by University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries and the Working Class British Art Network.  Image: A visitor to the exhibition ‘Lives Less Ordinary: Working-Class Britain Re-seen' at Two Temple Place, London. Credit: Richard Eaton.   Biography  Samantha Manton is a London-based curator, researcher and cultural producer with over fifteen years of experience across the creative sector. She spent six years as part of the team developing the V&A’s two new east London sites — the V&A East Storehouse and the recently opened V&A East Museum — and curated the latter’s Why We Make collection galleries. As an independent practitioner, she recently curated Lives Less Ordinary: Working-class Britain Re-seen for Two Temple Place, an exhibition which challenged stereotypical and reductive representations of working-class lives in art and ran from January to April 2025. Drawing on her own working-class background, Samantha’s practice centres underrepresented perspectives within museums and cultural institutions. She will shortly be embarking on a 'New Narratives' research fellowship with the Paul Mellon Centre to deepen her research into class and museum collections.

Curating Class 3: Beth Hughes on Class Biases in Curatorial Practices

“The role of an organisation is not to force the artwork to adapt to the conventions of the institution, but to adapt its methods to the needs of the artwork… “Curating can itself become a class-conscious methodology.”  How do curatorial practices reproduce or challenge class-based inequalities, and what practical changes might make the art world more equitable?  Curator, researcher and founder of the Working Class British Art Network Beth Hughes discusses her experiences of institutional and curatorial class bias, and her own sense of responsibility for changing how class is represented in collections and exhibitions.  The institutional reception for works such as Jo Spence’s Beyond the Family Album (1979), or Sean Edwards’ 2020 film Maelfa exemplifies how class is so frequently “softened, displaced, washed over or under-articulated” in curatorial practices and institutions.  With reference to the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus – ingrained patterns of thought, behaviour and taste – Hughes identifies historic and contemporary prejudices, omissions and blind spots relating to class in art. These can range from critical tendencies to minimise the importance of class in art practices, to concerns about the conservation and care of works made with non-traditional materials, and the effect of this in turn on acquisitions.  She discusses the practices of three artists featured in our exhibition ‘[uz], [uz], [uz]’ – Conor Rogers, Charlotte Dawson and Grace Clifford – and talks about her aspirations for ‘The Way We Live’, a group exhibition that she is currently preparing for The Box, Plymouth.  Introduced by Dr Laura Claveria, University of Leeds Library Galleries Exhibitions Curator (Art), this was the third paper in Curating Class: Rethinking Art Exhibitions Methodologies. Hosted by the University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries, this day of talks and discussions coincided with the 2025-26 exhibition in The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, ‘[uz], [uz], [uz]: Artists from Working-Class Backgrounds’.  Co-produced by University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries and the Working Class British Art Network.  http://www.bethhughescurator.com/ [http://www.bethhughescurator.com/] Image: Beth Hughes In Conversation with Joe Tucker, Manchester International Festival, 2025.

Curating Class 2: Laura Claveria and Simon Marginson on Curating and Researching [uz], [uz], [uz]

“Being faithful to the diversity of the artists involved; avoiding tropes; challenging stereotypes... Celebrating the enormous vitality and creativity of artists from working-class backgrounds...” Exhibitions Curator at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery Dr Laura Claveria gives a brief introduction to the process of curating the 2025-26 exhibition [uz], [uz], [uz]: Artists from Working-Class Backgrounds. Dr Simon Marginson discusses how he researched the University of Leeds’ Art Collection in preparation for the exhibition, and the methodology he developed for what’s thought to be the first full class audit attempted by a gallery or collection. Recorded in front of a live audience at Curating Class: Rethinking Art Exhibitions Methodologies, a day of talks and discussions hosted by the University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries in spring 2026 to coincide with the 2025-26 exhibition ‘[uz], [uz], [uz]: Artists from Working-Class Backgrounds’ at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery. Co-produced by University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries and the Working Class British Art Network. Image: Mary Lord, Sunset (detail), oil on board, 1964. Orphan work. Cultural Collections and Galleries, University of Leeds Libraries, Art Collection

Curating Class 1: Dr Rebecca Starr on Working Class Art Histories

Dr Rebecca Starr, Lecturer in History of Art in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds, gives an overview of art history’s relationship with class, which she traces back to the discipline's origins in Enlightenment philosophy.    The idea of the autonomous art object, set apart from everyday life, was still being endorsed in the mid-20th-century by critics like Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. It was challenged in the 1960s and 70s by figures including Nicos Hadjinicolaou and Griselda Pollock.  Introduced by Dr Laura Claveria, University of Leeds Library Galleries Exhibitions Curator (Art), this was the opening paper in Curating Class: Rethinking Art Exhibitions Methodologies.   Hosted by the University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries, this day of talks and discussions coincided with the 2025-26 exhibition ‘[uz], [uz], [uz]: Artists from Working-Class Backgrounds’ at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery. Watch the referenced excerpt from the Netflix documentary ‘Beckham’:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E4s0RqCBzU [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E4s0RqCBzU]  Co-produced by University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries and the Working Class British Art Network.

Contemporary Conversations: Cultures of Memory

How can art resist forgetting, or question state-endorsed histories? Can memories articulated through art enable us to think about and create possible futures? How does art enable us to understand the histories and the challenges of diaspora? For the second of our talks on themes of the Turner Prize 2025, we're joined by Shanaz Gulzar MBE, artist and Creative Director of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture; contemporary international art curator and current Exhibitions Curator at Serpentine Tamsin Hong; multidisciplinary artist Rudy Loewe; and artist and filmmaker Karanjit Panesar.  Joanne Crawford, Professor in History and Theory of Art and Head of the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds, introduces and chairs the conversation. We hear about how memory figures in their work and practices, those of the artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize, and in the wider landscape of contemporary art. 'Cultures of Memory' was curated by Yorkshire Contemporary in partnership with the University of Leeds. The discussion took place in front of an audience at the University during the final weeks of the Turner Prize exhibition, in February 2026. Biographies Joanne Crawford is a Professor of History and Philosophy of Art, specialising in French and American abstract painting and sculpture. She has taught the History of Art across both undergraduate and postgraduate levels for over 30 years. She is now the Head of the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds and works closely with a number of regional arts organisations to enable and encourage inclusive collaboration between higher education and public engagement.  Shanaz Gulzar MBE, Creative Director of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, is an acclaimed artist, producer and presenter whose career spans film, visual arts, theatre, public art and media. She led on the creation of the Bradford 2025 cultural programme; working with local, national and international partners to deliver an ambitious programme of work rooted in the unique heritage and character of Bradford district, ensuring local people were at the heart of the programme. Shanaz has previously worked as a producer at Manchester International Festival (MIF) and has presented a number of BBC television programmes including Yorkshire Walks and the documentary film Hidden Histories: The Lost Portraits of Bradford.  Tamsin Hong is a contemporary international art curator. Her intersectional research interests draw from her upbringing on unceded Ngunnawal Country on the land now known as Australia and include feminism, women’s knowledge systems, embodied practices, re-indigenising approaches and decoloniality. Hong is Exhibitions Curator at Serpentine, London where her projects include the 2026 Pavilion, Arpita Singh: Remembering (2025), Yinka Shonibare CBE: Suspended States (2024) and Georg Baselitz: Sculptures 2011-2015 (2023). She was formerly Assistant Curator at Tate Modern, specialising in performance, worked on African and Australian acquisitions, and co-curated the land rights exhibition A Year in Art: Australia 1992. Rudy Loewe is a multidisciplinary artist who creates spaces to consider collective practices and resistance histories. Through media such as painting, drawing and sculpture, Loewe questions the power of gathering in collectivity. Alongside conversations, workshops and archival research, Loewe weaves in African and Caribbean folklore, embedding community and accessibility at the centre of their practice. Loewe is the ninth exhibiting artist for the Art on the Underground Brixton Mural Programme. Last year, they unveiled The Congregation, a new work that honours the historic role that Brixton has played as a gathering space, particularly for London’s Black communities, adding another layer to Loewe’s ongoing exploration of culture, identity, resistance and collective memory.  Karanjit Panesar is an artist and filmmaker living and working in Leeds. Running through his practice are oblique explorations of identity and its formulation within political, economic and social structures. Often starting from moving image, he constructs stylised and layered installations that contain sculpture and other media. Environments, ideas and objects spill into and out of the space of the screen; artworks are in some way unfixed, asked to be more than one thing at once. Panesar’s work is underpinned by capitalist critique, using metaphor to build and re-configure myths, worlds and stories. Recent solo presentations include: Furnace Fruit (2024), Leeds Art Gallery; Clarence Pier (2022), Aspex Portsmouth; Parts of Wholes (2022), Workplace Foundation, Newcastle; Actor, Container (2021), Two Queens, Leicester; Strange Loop (2019), Turf Projects, Croydon; and THE WAY THINGS ARE (2018), arebyte Gallery, London.