This book argues that British working-class urban culture was silenced in the period 1900 - 1950 and that the effects of this are still felt. The agencies of this silencing were state education, the BC Radio and the commercialisation of working class cultural institutions (from 1850). The effects in my own life are picked up from the fifties onwards and some of the fightback against the hegemony of silencing is shown often with graphic pages.
The style is a cross between lecture slides and Zine So a lot of mini posters, and graphic pages. It follows on from previous work but includes new research and new formulations to explore the relation between class oppression and culture. It should be more accessible than previous works.
What does it feel like for a whole class to collectively loose its voice? Stefan Szczelkun's Silence is a careful tracking of the ways in which working class culture has been oppressed and is a call to arms to actively find ways for working class culture to re-find its voice. Through autobiographical storytelling and historical research Silence is essential reading for those who are interested in challenging the hegemony of middle class cultural institutions and reasserting autonomous working class culture. Jordan McKenzie
Szczelkun, Stefan: - Born in London post WW2 of displaced working class parents I grew up in the suburb of Shepperton. I studied architecture at Portsmouth before joining the Scratch Orchestra. I had some success as an author in the UK and USA with three books on our basic life supports: Survival Scrapbooks: Shelter, Food and Energy. Whilst at college I ran the Portsmouth Arts Workshop after being inspired by the Drury Lane Arts Lab and came in contact with leading experimental artists of the day, including Cornelius Cardew and The Scratch Orchestra. I then researched the elements of human ability whilst working with New Dance Collective and wrote for their magazine. Much later this work was published as Sense - Think - Act. During the Eighties I became a more conventional artist moving from Mail art to drawing, printmaking and performance art. I was a founder member of the Brixton Artists Collective and gallery which was active from 1983 -1987. Towards the end of the Eighties my work took a literary and theoretical turn in relation to identity politics. This resulted in three books on class and art published under the collective Working Press imprint and a series of made-to-measure exhibitions with my 'Bigos: artists of Polish Origin' group that were supported by the Arts Council and is now archived with the Tate. At the beginning of the Nineties I had the chance to build my own house in Kennington, London, as part of a self-build co-op. I took an MA in Time-based Media to train in digital media skills. This was followed by a doctorate at the RCA 1997 - 2002 in which I evaluated my experience of artists collectives with a participant study of Exploding Cinema. At the same time I produced a series of video DVDs on culture and democracy, publishing them post 2002. I got a job teaching on the MA Visual Culture at Westminster University and joined the Mute Magazine editorial team. This led to a variety of articles and blogs including the collaborative Agit Disco project, which was published as a book by Mute in 2012. Since my doctoral research I have been activating the archives of my past collective activities. These have now been acquired by major public archives including: BFI Special Collections, National Art Library at the V&A, Tate Archive, University of the Creative Arts in Farnham and the Museum of London. In the spring of 2017 I was invited to Documenta 14 in Athens with Carole Finer, to lead a ensemble performance based on the 'Nature Study Notes' improvisation rites. At D14 there was also a vitrine display of my archive material from MayDay Rooms, including at set of photographs of The Scratch Cottage, that was built and exhibited at Art Spectrum in 1971. A book of the whole experience of working with these improvisation rites was published in January 2018 - 'Improvisation Rites'. My work is a sensible response to situations that I am in. This has led me to work in open artists collectives and to produce books. I have been wary of commissioned work unless in response to specific spaces, situations and communities. The media I used has mainly been writing, photography or video but has also included curation, performance and activism. I have tended to reject establishment modes to embrace more fluid collective situations.
