Twenty-fourteen started out with the now predictable vilification of the poor and the equally inevitable squeeze on our education system, contributing to the depletion of our cultural landscape.

Edwina Curry's idiotic remarks about food banks and Richard Littlejohn's vile comments in the Daily Mail about council estate hairstyles and accents confirm the class-prejudiced and demographically orientated character assassination clearly operating within the government and its supporters in the press.

Michael Gove's attempts to rewrite the history of the first world war as a chivalrous fairy tale for school children dovetailed with Channel 4's prurient smear campaign dressed up as the "documentary" Benefits Street.

But as Littlejohn drags the Duggan family name through more undeserved mud, a peaceful vigil for Mr Duggan, and other Londoners killed by police officers, took place outside Tottenham police station earlier this month.

I joined a very large crowd - the "mainstream" media reported only 300 being present - after being stuck on a train to White Hart Lane packed full of chanting Spurs and Palace fans. Upon escape I was among a peaceable community expressing their grief.

That weekend I also noticed John McDonald MP was sharing plans for the People's Parliament debates and talks taking place throughout the year. Speakers include Mark Fisher, KPunk blogger and author of Capitalist Realism, among others who are building forums for discussion before the impending election.

Over the next few weeks I plan to see the Sleaford Mods live, visit the resilient Housmans Bookshop in Kings Cross and deliver a bundle of Socialist Film Co-op fliers around where I live.

I hope while I'm away that the council estate I live on doesn't catch fire, as our local fire station in Clerkenwell has been closed down by London Mayor Boris Johnson.

As an artist and lecturer I have witnessed other cuts at first hand, particularly to arts funding. Teaching staff are under extreme pressure as they are stretched across large groups of students who are themselves expecting quick-fix outcomes.

The debts they are accumulating allow them little time to study as jobs take precedence and this is of course not a productive climate for art or education. It does not stop there. The small amount of state funding for artistic practice is now chased by many artists, with only a few getting the help they need.

This epoch reminds us of the 1950s in the post-New Deal US. It sees the final dismantling of not only the British welfare system but also the idea of art supported by the state, that represents a social commons. It is creating a competitive system of artists as small business owners.

But some groups have taken the idea of alternative education, exhibition and archival co-operatives seriously. They are trying to create spaces outside our ever-more privatised institutions and among many others in London are the School Of The Damned www.theschoolofthedamned.com and the Mayday Rooms www.maydayrooms.org on Fleet Street. In Hastings, the Communist Gallery www.facebook.com/pages/Communist-Gallery is opening an exhibition next month.

Most of these artists and teachers are also working to rebuild a free state education system that is country-wide. They understand that smaller organisations currently only facilitate cities where there are already networks to build on.

Many groups, like Marxism In Culture www.marxisminculture.org, continue to run lecture series from within the university system, in forums maintained by collective commitment.

This year my work as an artist will take me to Norway next month, where I will show an adaptation of an exhibition I first presented a few months ago in London.That incarnation saw the "virtual" rebuilding of the Daily Worker offices in CGI video (pictured).

It was a culmination of my work with many people and this new presentation of the installation will be tailored specifically for Norway and centre around a Brutalist building in Oslo that is scheduled for demolition. A publication will accompany the exhibition, designed and published by the daily paper of the left in Norway, with texts by different writers and artists.

I'll also have exhibitions on in New York at the New Museum, at Focal Point Gallery in Southend and I'll be talking about my work at Spike Island in Bristol and contributing to a panel discussion for the Shimmering Worlds Conference at the University of Manchester.

As the end of January draws in, the apparent structural criminalisation, manipulation and impoverishment of the working classes or the poor is still perpetuated throughout the cultural media and aesthetics.

I am aware again that my work as an artist and teacher is to act with others to change this damaging and negative perception.

The importance of our collaboration to change this damaging and negative perception is ever clear. I look forward to the ongoing rebuilding process this year.