Introducing Horror Nation?, a recent season from Dazed in regards to the current state of the UK from the attitude of the young individuals who live here. Over the course of this week, we can be celebrating the nice that is going on all across the country – the culture and the creativity, the artists and the activists, the positive forces for change. But we can even be confronting the truth that life is getting increasingly difficult for British youth, and that Britishness itself is in flux, and even crisis. Stick with us as we lift the lid on modern Britain and ask whether this really is a horror nation.

Britain has at all times owed its art schools an enormous thanks. Our world-renowned institutions have trained the likes of David Hockney, Alexander McQueen, David Bowie, Vivienne Westwood and countless other legendary artists. Yet despite our history of manufacturing a few of an important designers, musicians and artists of the past century, are Britain’s art schools what they once were, especially within the midst of ongoing Tory cuts to the humanities?

Within the late 80s, Britain’s art schools, particularly Goldsmiths College of Art, began to be recognised because the home of the Young British Artists (YBAs). They fostered recent types of innovation using shocking imagery and located objects, with members including the likes of Damien Hirst, Angus Fairhunt and Sarah Lucas. Today, while Britain’s art schools are still world-famous, the classes of 2023 are reckoning with growing government contempt for the humanities. Remember Fatima the ballerina? Whose next job might be in cyber (she just doesn’t realize it yet)? Yeah, we wish we could forget that one too. 

Art schools was once a refuge for Britain’s most creative minds – no matter whether or not they were wealthy or not. Hirst, for instance, once said that his family was so poor he’d often go searching hoping to discover a “pound note” on the ground while growing up in Leeds. But today, the landscape may be very different. Tuition fees rising to £9,250 in 2012 has doubtless deterred some creatives from poorer backgrounds from applying to college in any respect, while others may need opted to review a course with higher graduate earnings potential (creative graduates, generally speaking, earn less than graduates of STEM subjects). It is sensible that individuals are concerned about how much money they’ll make after graduating now that a university education involves moving into hundreds of kilos of student debt – and particularly as we’re still living through a period of rampant inflation.

Arts subjects even have the potential to be costlier than other courses, with many students having to shell out for needed materials and supplies (akin to sketchbooks, paint, or fabric). Some drama schools also charge as much as £80 for an audition; 19-year-old performing arts student Aiva Tambourini was only capable of audition at Royal Central due to the university’s ‘fair access’ scheme, which offers eligible applicants free auditions. Chatting with Dazed, she says she knew her background put her at a drawback when it got here to breaking into the humanities industry. “I needed to work and save up numerous money simply to pay for the auditions. If you’ve gotten money you may audition to as many places as you would like, but if you happen to don’t you may’t,” she says. “And if you get to the audition, numerous the questions are like: ‘what have you ever been to see? What have you ever done?’. It’s hard to coach in the humanities if you happen to don’t have money.”

“The individuals who will make history as artists are the people who find themselves fidgeting with transgression. People should never feel totally comfortable with the art being made. Something dangerous is not going to sell within the moment” – TJ Finley

With all this in mind, it’s unsurprising that art schools are a few of the most elitist universities within the country: research published in 2018 found that just 55 per cent of scholars accepted to review on the Courtauld in 2016 went to state schools, despite state-educated students making up 90 per cent of all recent undergraduates in the identical yr. Even the University of Cambridge admitted more state-educated students (63 per cent) in the identical yr. Moreover, working-class representation in creative industries is just 50 per cent of what it was within the Seventies.

Economic aspects aside, the federal government also seems hellbent on quashing the humanities. In 2021, it slashed funding to art and design courses within the UK by 50 per cent and has suggested that creative courses can be scrutinised as a part of its crackdown on ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees. They’re also set to introduce recent immigration rules in 2024 which is able to lead to most international students being banned from bringing their families to the UK with them. International students often comprise a sizeable chunk of the coed body at art schools – they make up 32 per cent of scholars on the Courtauld Institute of Art and 47.9 per cent on the University of the Arts London (UAL) – so with fewer students contributing each financially and creatively to institutions like these, it seems likely that art schools are destined to struggle in years to return.

This isn’t just a difficulty of ‘representation for representation’s sake’, either. It’s vital working-class creatives are still capable of access Britain’s art schools not only since it’s fair, but in addition because they’re good. Working example: TJ Finley. Finley showcased perhaps essentially the most subversive and shocking collection of the entire CSM graduate show last month, titled ‘Fags Forking the Wealthy’. The gathering was a love letter to their working-class background, inspired by the textures of a decaying windmill home to heroin and crack users visible from their childhood bedroom window. For the gathering, TJ crafted garments made out of knitted leather and cigarette butts woven into the material, and likewise controversially pelted celebrity guests with cigarette butts throughout the show.

“I had to maintain my idea a secret. I couldn’t tell the tutors what I used to be planning, they might have tried to stop me,” they are saying. For TJ, the varsity of today is a great distance from its iconic legacy. “CSM will not be an art school, it’s a business. You already know that if you’re walking in and paying nearly £6 for a cup of coffee,” they are saying, adding that they imagine things have only gotten worse since CSM announced a partnership with luxury goods giant LVMH in 2017. In TJ’s view, LVMH is driving CSM away from its more transgressive roots and towards churning out ‘secure’, palatable designs which is able to earn essentially the most money.

“Even these big scholarships are for individuals who they know will get a job inside a brand which is performing on commerciality and might consistently sell. So what’s happening to the legacy?”, TJ says. “The individuals who will make history as artists are the people who find themselves fidgeting with transgression. People should never feel totally comfortable with the art being made. Something dangerous is not going to sell within the moment,” they proceed. “When great designers first release their work there may be more backlash than support because people don’t get it, or don’t wish to support it.”

Can we still consider CSM and other iconic art schools as a jewel in Britain’s prestigious crown of creativity, when commercially successful work is seen as more ‘useful’ than anything disruptive or transgressive? When higher education is increasingly commodified? When art schools have gotten dominated by wealthier students, while poorer creatives are barred from entry? The growing elitism of Britain’s art world is in conflict with the creation of radical, subversive art which these institutions are historically known for – and without making space for talent from all walks of life, Britain risks letting the following generation of modern artists slip through the web.

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