Michael Day is a contemporary artist, researcher, and lecturer based in Sheffield, UK.

His recent work is informed by the persistence of meritocracy in the popular imagination, despite its ineffectiveness as an organising concept for the improvement of equity in society. After completing a doctoral study that focused on asymmetrical power dynamics in online settings, he began to develop an interest in his own autobiography and class background.

This prompted the production of an ongoing body of work that explores the architectural legacy of the area he grew up in, and develops a critique of the widespread, insistent belief in meritocracy in the art world, set against the harsh reality of working conditions for many artists.

A photo of a red T-shirt with the words 'Emerging Artist' in a horror-film typeface printed on it in lurid green ink

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