Artists are in shock after the vote, but we need them now more than ever | Charlotte Higgins:
In the years to come, artists and intellectuals will venture across the rift to interpret the two halves of our divided kingdom to one other
‘We had a headache,’ wrote Philip Pullman on Twitter on Friday, ‘so we shot our foot off. Now we can’t walk, and we still have the headache.’
There is, of course, no one like a novelist to reach for the apt and telling metaphor at a time of chaos. The referendum result rings particularly bleakly for Britain’s cultural world. Most artists, curators, musicians, directors and scholars think of themselves as instinctively and reflexively open to the world, optimistic about its possibilities and curious about its imaginative byways. Supporting Britain’s membership of the EU has been a natural part of that. The same is true of our universities, which is why vice-chancellors were almost all strongly urging a remain vote before the referendum.
The referendum has brought into shocking light the depths of the rifts in British culture
(Via .)