Corbin Shaw Flips the Narratives of Traditional Britain

Toxic masculinity is a running thread throughout your work. What initially drew you to this theme, and what do you hope to achieve by shedding light on it?

I grew up in what you could call very ‘masculine’ environments where my ‘role models’ would enforce these rules of masculinity that I never really felt like I fit in.

Going to football and boxing with my Dad, I would have been at the gym or in the pubs. As I got older, I became more aware of what it was that was expected of me as a young man in those environments, for example, the invisible laws of masculinity that our peers’ police. In my family, I come from a long line of blokes who worked labour jobs: welders, bricklayers, and miners, who preached how to graft and how to get through it. I always felt like I was falling short of the expectations as a young man and as a northerner. The legacy of the men that came before you is a heavy burden for a young man who didn’t want to go down the same route. There were constant reminders of the past in my hometown, reminders of the defunct industries that once employed generations of men still stand today. There are all these little memorials, like the wheel that used to lower the minors into the pits. You’ve constantly got reminders of where you are an’ who came before you. I was lucky cos me mum and dad encouraged me to go and do what I want. They really installed a lot of good values and work ethic into myself and my three sisters without forcing me to follow any footsteps. As long as I was going to work hard, that was fine.

When I was 18, I moved to London to study fine art at CSM. I was only able to truly understand those environments that I grew up in once I’d moved away from them. A lot of my work hopes to understand those spaces and why men act the way they do, what informs that behaviour. I’m often trying to isolate scenarios. If I remove them and deflate them, can we understand them better? Making the art on masculinity was therapy for myself, really, a way to tell myself that masculinity can be fluid and open. I’m slowly concluding within myself that this box of ‘default man’ is a myth and totally unachievable.

You’re only able to make sense of your usual when you’re displaced, and that usual becomes unusual. Through my artwork, me and my dad have been able to understand each other better, through comparing how our masculinity is performed.

A lot of my work is based around the ideals of my hometown. I aim to shift the way The North is often misinterpreted by London-centric media and share her culture in a way that is relatable to others.

Almost acting as modern tapestries, your work offers an interesting and unique way of delivering a message. What inspired you to take this approach?

When I was studying at CSM, I got homesick, so I started making work about my family, home, and thinking, to feel closer to that space. I started focusing on where my identity was formed. For me, this was home and at the football. I started going to football again with my dad. Strange, because I'd kind of rejected football in my later teens, because it had caused me so much heartbreak and alienation. I’d not really been for years, but now I was looking at everything so differently. With this newfound nostalgia for that space, I started going back and photographing the lads and flags on the terraces at Bramall Lane, Sheffield United’s ground. I became obsessed with what was written on the flags. The puns, the songs, the slurs. Football fans are bloody smart, they don’t really get the credit they deserve. I think football flags are a form of folk art to some extent. Football chants are one of the last remaining oral traditions and folk songs we have in this country.

I like that clash between football (stereotypically masculine) and then clashing that with textiles (stereotypically feminine). Big bold text, delicately sewn. I like them sorts of things that cancel each other out. I like making things smaller, flaccid, deflating, taking the sting out of them. I once made a series of trophy’s about losing boxing and football matches. Which were like limp boxing gloves and deflated balls. A lot of my sculpture is quite phallic haha, I guess a lot of male expression is phallic. But yeah, I like pathetic objects that describe a feeling. 

Your work has been presented alongside Martin Parr’s as a look into football fandom. How do you think the culture has changed since the photographer started documenting, and what themes do you think still hold true – for better or worse – today?

Football is completely different now. How it’s watched, an' who’s watching it. What’s acceptable to say and sing on the terraces. Especially in London, clubs have made a conscious effort to market themselves to people who maybe once felt like they weren’t welcome, which is great.

Sadly, like a lot of things, as one side gets better, the other gets worse. There is still that minority of fans that give it a bad name. I'd like to think that the overall feeling is that they’re the ones who aren’t welcome at the match anymore. Football can be an incredible vehicle to change the world. Football brings us together and divides us, you can’t dispute how powerful it is.

You’ve sported a few iterations of the modern mullet over the past year or so, which, I believe, we have your mum to thank for. How did her working as a barber influence your creativity growing up?

This is such a sick question, big up my mum. I never get to speak about her, but she means the world to me. Brought me and my three sisters up whilst still learning how to barber at college. She’s cut hair since she was 16, I think. Best barber in Sheffield. Shoutout Razors Barbers in Sheffield! I’ve had all the iterations of Beckham's hairstyle thanks to my mum. My favourite was the blonde mohawk with wet-look gel, matched perfectly with a pair of Adidas Predators. But yeah, my mum is the reason why I am creative. I was proper hyperactive when I was little, so she would sit me down and make me draw. She would also tell me that barbering is like sculpting. My dad also sends me photos of his welding all the time, saying “this is art”. He’s not wrong. Both my parents are insane at what they do, [I’m] in awe of them every day. I also think growing up in a barber shop was where I would’ve started to really look at other men, especially footballers. The walls were always covered in collages of the biggest names in footy at the time: Lampard, Gerrard, and obviously, Becks. My mum would always say "I’m a barber, not a plastic surgeon, I can cut your hair like him." 

A Yorkshire lad born and bred, how did moving down south to London influenced your work?

I’ve lived in London for 5 years now. When I first moved, it was the first time I was able to reflect on my own culture and upbringing, because of how different it was down here. 

You only really know where you’re at once you’ve left and you experience some other culture, [that] you’re able to spot those differences. I’ve made a lot of work in my 5 years about growing up back home. It’s strange because I now feel pretty far removed from that. I think that nostalgia can be quite a crippling thing when being an artist, it can feel like you’re getting trapped in what has been, rather than what needs to be. It feels a little ‘the good old days’ sort of attitude. I’m having to look more at my life now and reference. One eye on the past whilst sprinting forward. I’m more interested in using things like football to talk about masculinity, identity, and gender. I’m interested in idols, shrines, totems, and the complexities of modern England.