navigating art & class

As a girl from Tallaght, stepping into the art world always felt a little alien to me. Surrounded by people with money and connections, I often felt like I was missing some hidden code, some secret manual that everyone else seemed to have. Interest in art has always been a signifier of class, and navigating that world means performing roles. If you come from a “lower” class, you learn to play a “higher” class. If you come from a “higher” class, you sometimes perform “lower.”

I remember trying hummus for the first time. It was first year of art school, waiting outside a lecture hall. A classmate, whose dad was a writer and mother an artist, offered me some crackers and hummus. I had no idea what it was. I tasted it and I have to say, I loved it. I think of that moment now and realise just how much taste and knowledge can mark you as inside or outside a world.

Years later, on my first (and so far, only) artist residency in New York* at Arts, Letters & Numbers, I noticed how these invisible codes operated even more intensely. After returning to the house after my first grocery shop, a resident fellow gasped at the food I unpacked. “You didn't choose organic? Don’t you know what they put on this stuff?” I had simply bought the cheapest options. I knew organic was “better,” but it had never occurred to me to prioritise that over money.

As I moved deeper into the art world, these patterns repeated themselves. Food, drink, and social rituals became markers of belonging. Collective dinners with homemade kombuchas, vegan, gluten-free, nut-free dishes, perfectly paired with openings serving budget lager, revealed this tension between inclusion and pretension.

And then there’s the other side of the dance: class cosplay. The image of an NCAD from Dalkey shooting their graduate fashion collection lookbook in front of a block of flats comes to mind. This same person, years earlier, might have refused to speak to me at the stables** because of my accent or background. Now, working-class identity is cool, aspirational, performative. Nike Airmax, Lidl crates of that cheap beer in the little green bottles at openings...it’s all a costume, and one they are so desperate to wear for some reason. 

Martin Parr’s Last Resort also offers a sharp lens on class, though from a very different outlook and angle. His work, depicting working-class holidaymakers in harsh, almost caricatured ways, highlights how the privileged (like Parr himself) can observe or represent class from a distance. I’ve always found it striking how the work elicits a kind of pity or amusement, when for those living it, it’s their life, their experience, their very real choices about where to spend a holiday. It’s a reminder that class is both lived and performed, and that outside perspectives often fail to capture the true nuance of experience.

It’s infuriating. But it’s also illuminating. Everyone in the art world is performing something, curating a version of themselves that signals the right knowledge, tastes, and belonging. And the negotiation is exhausting, whether you’re pretending to be “higher class” or pretending to be “lower class.”

Food and taste are just the beginning. Travel, language, and cultural references operate in the same way. Conversations about residencies, exhibitions abroad, or even which cities you’ve lived in can signal who belongs and who doesn’t. I’ve been in settings where mentioning a trip to certain European cities*** subtly marks you as “cultured,” and included while failing to name-drop the right gallery, museum, or curator seems to invite quiet judgment. The art world is propped up on these micro-metrics of belonging, and they’re almost always invisible unless you don’t fit them.

Then there’s the emotional labour of class translation. I’ve watched people from wealthy backgrounds try desperately to perform “authenticity” by adopting working-class habits, tracksuits, altered accents, stories of humble upbringing. They have the means, the knowledge, and the safety net to step back at any time. For someone genuinely from a working-class background, these same behaviours are often just...who you are. They’re not performative, they’re your lived experience. You have to find your way of navigating spaces that weren’t built for you. And yet, the performance by the privileged is often more rewarded, more visible, more funded, more “cool.”

The tension fascinates and frustrates me. On one side, I sometimes feel like I have to perform sophistication, taste, and knowledge to be respected. On the other, you see people co-opt the markers of your childhood for social and commercial gain. The result is a strange, exhausting choreography: everyone pretending to be someone they’re not, or at least performing the side of themselves the art world wants to see. And the cost is often invisibility for those who are genuinely inhabiting these roles without the luxury of performance.

And here I am, working long hours in retail while trying to sustain an art practice, acutely aware of the unspoken gaps that exist in this world I want to build a career in. Some come with every advantage: time, financial support, networks, and the confidence that comes from not needing to worry about rent or bills. I don’t have that safety net, so every project, every exhibition, every step forward requires a different kind of calculation, resilience, and persistence. I’ve also noticed how these spaces subtly shape tastes and habits: I find myself drawn to the hipster coffee shops, trendy bars, vintage stores, and cultural markers I once thought were out of reach, not out of pretension but because they feel like part of navigating and participating in this world. At the same time, I see how confidence and decisiveness can be learned from observing those who move easily through these spaces, and I try to absorb what works without losing my own way. I continue to learn to belong on my own terms, bridging worlds without giving up what I am or where I come from. That's all I can do. 

*I feel like a dick every time I say this. Other times I love that I get to say it. 
**I was a horse girl as you all know. Don;t even get me started on the role class plays in that world.
***cough, Arles, cough Paris Photo