Benefitted 

2023, Materials: Children’s coloured pencil drawing of the 2023 HMRC Child benefit form. Framed dimensions 748 x 1003mm


Image credit: Andy Stag @studiostagg


 


 

‘Benefitted’ is a 9 A4 paged drawing of the 2023 HMRC Child benefit form, drawn in children’s coloured pencils. My mum claimed from the benefit system whilst bringing me up and this piece of work has felt an act of defiance and protest against the media classes demonisation of the working class. Right wing politics was increasingly growing at the time of making the piece, which frequently spread propaganda that stereotyped a negative bias, blaming poor people to distract away from the real reasons for austerity. It was a time where increased cost of living was on the rise, with more and more hardworking families not being able to make ends meet. I noticed a subtle internalised shame for coming from a poorer background, and that many of us who benefitted from the system, didn’t fit into the stereotype. I made Benefitted to proudly announce to the world that I was a benefits baby and proud of it. That now I do live a more middle class lifestyle but that is thanks to society giving me the best start in life possible. That every child has the right to be given the best start in life. Claiming benefits has become an ever increasingly bureaucratic dehumanising process, the hand drawn element of the form, brings the human back into it. The benefit was historically a symbolic acknowledgement from society that bringing up children was seen as a form of labour. Being one of the only finances paid directly into women’s accounts, it gave women a small bit of financial autonomy from their husbands. I see the piece as existentially biographic, simply its existence in the art world makes it a political statement, just like me.