Lives Less Ordinary at Two Temple Place

Working-class at the centre.

A few weeks ago, I went to visit the always stunning gem Two Temple Place, a neo-Tudor building with gothic elements. A fantasy. Their exhibitions programme is pretty good and it counts with cultural and community activities too, my sort of art - professional paradise. More when you place the richness and diversity of working-class life and it’s creative expression in such a historical but not-so-working-class building. In fact, it interrogates wealth, privilege, and those art institutions that lack in working-class representation.

“Lives Less Ordinary” - Working Class Britain Re-seen - explores and presents working-class with a proud, resilient, tender, hopeful and humorous perspective. It includes moments of daily life, looking beyond the narratives that always represent such a topic which are crisis and struggle.

Bringing a mix of paintings, photographs, film, ceramics, archival material, and plenty of reading, a group of working-class artists came together with the curator Samantha May Manton to reflect authentically what they had or still have experienced here in this land.

What I enjoyed the most is the sense of humour. The exhibition feels light, creative, tender, homey, colourful, fun to explore and fun to learn and relate. It breathes! I was glad to discover some new works and see in person some I knew already. Perhaps more activities around the exhibition could be great so it has a stronger community presence but, overall, it is good to see the representation of where I come from.

Fab detail? It is a free entry.