You are invited to join Katie Beswick and Kelly Green at their joint launch event
Katie Beswick is launching her new book Slags on Stage: Class, Sex, Art and Desire in British Culture and Kelly Green is launching her online exhibition SKIN. There will be some performance readings, followed by Katie and Kelly in conversation about their works, their feelings on being slaggy, and working class feminist culture.
When: Thursday 3rd July at 7pm
Where: Newington Green Meeting House, 39a Newington Green, London, N16 9PR
Venue Information: ARTS ON THE GREEN
A bar selling a range of alcoholic drinks, soft drinks and snacks will be available.
TO BOOK: SLAGS ‘N’ SKIN: A Book, A Tattoo and Feeling Slaggy | Eventbrite
Standard tickets are £7.50 (Concessions £5.00), with each ticket booking you will receive a pamphlet of Katie Beswick’s ‘Jackie’ poems and a 25% discount code for the Slags on Stage book.
An enhanced £12 ticket includes a copy of Katie’s poetry collection Plumstead Pram Pushers, a sister-text to Slags on Stage.
Slags on Stage (2025) is a hybrid work of poetry, memoir, arts criticism and cultural theory. It offers a cultural and personal history of the word ‘slag’, arguing that the word as a sexist insult forms an important ‘key word’ in late twentieth century British culture, which helps us to understand some of the complexities around the intersections of class and sex (and gender and race too). This book explores the terrain of slag and includes analyses of artworks by artists who have invoked the slag in their practice, including Tracey Emin, Cash Carraway, Michaela Coel and Kelly Green. Covering the cultural politics of clothing, motherhood, television representations, sexual assault, sex work and desire, Slags on Stage asks: what role does the ‘slag’ play in British culture? Who is she for? And how have women used sex and sexuality to have their own say in cultures that want to control them?
Slags on Stage: Class, Sex, Art and Desire in British Culture – 1st Ed
Katie Beswick is a writer and academic, whose work circulates around questions of class in art and culture. She publishes journalism, scholarship, poetry, life writing and fiction. Books include Social Housing in Performance (Methuen 2019), Making Hip Hop Theatre (2022) and the poetry collection Plumstead Pram Pushers (Red Ogre Review 2024). She teaches at Goldsmiths University of London.
SKIN (2018) is an online exhibition of the process of Kelly Green getting a tattoo the design of which is made up of four elements: the word CHAV for her, a thistle for her mum, a piece of lavender for her nana, and the elements are brought together in the star sign constellation of Aquarius, which is her daughter Amber’s star sign. The tattoo represents the reclaiming of the word CHAV, whilst also acknowledging the intergenerational connections of four Working Class women: have a listen to chats between Kelly and her mum or Amber, footage of the tattoo in action and creative writing reflections to the process and of her little nana. This is part of a wider body of practice as research exploring lived experiences of class.
Kelly Green is an interdisciplinary socially engaged performance artist; a caring, feisty, hot mess. She has created two solo shows CHAV, SLAG and is working on her current project MILF (the Musical): a co-creation theatre piece exploring motherhood in all its genders and painful glory.
Katie Beswick 
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