Why is creativity in Great Britain now circumscribed to history?

[Ironhouse]

There are no major feats of art, culture or sports to speak of, at home or globally?

It all feels very much dull and stone grey.

The only thing I can think that's come out of this era is? ...

Why's it come to this folks?

Surely that’s subjective? I think our creativity, arts and sporting achievements are absolutely excellent.

What I cannot stand is this self deprecating British bashing. Why do people do it?!

Hilary Mantel, though.

Oh, and Banksy’s spraycation.

You’re going to have to join in the conversation a bit more, OP. What is it you want to see?
I don’t disagree with you. It’s all about STEM and output that can be measured in £.

And the new Gilbert & George Centre.

Yes. Her Reith lectures are fabulous, hopefully still online.

England women’s rugby team just completed a grand slam and a 4th successive women’s 6 nations title.

Thank you, I didn't know that.

OP - hope you'll come back and engage more.

And in sport, Erling Haaland 😮

I'm not sure you know what 'circumscribed' means, OP.

Stormzy at Glastonbury was genuinely thrilling.
But on the whole our music scene is moribund. It's a deathly awful time to be a young person.
All the great youth culture movements are a thing of the past.
I grew up in punk and new wave. Ran fanzines. In bands. Lived in squats. Those dark days of Thatcherism produced a huge creative energy that spawned great music and visual artists and theatre.
Where and how is creative talent being nurtured now?
I'd love to see younger generations get some fire in their bellies and shake things up.

"But on the whole our music scene is moribund."

no. Stormzy isn't my bag, but the music scene is grand.

"It's a deathly awful time to be a young person."

to quote the 1975,🎤 I'm sorry if you're living and you're 17....🎤

but the music is great.

All the great youth culture movements are a thing of the past

Say grandads throughout eternity 😃

This is too easy - a direct line from the 1960s that has led on, or been the Zeitgeist... Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bowie, Morissey, Britpop, 1D, etc

1D? You've got to be fucking kidding.

Anyway it's irrelevant. Where are we NOW?
Where are the new Mark E Smith's and Joe Strummers and Polly Harveys?
Where are the young voices to define a generation?
Live music is dead on its arse because of license restrictions. We saw this coming decades ago.
We had access to live music every night in one pub or another.
Gigs were easily affordable even if you were on the dole.
Glastonbury has turned into a corporate shitheap.
It's a miserable time for musicians.

The sole focus on STEM really worries me. It misses a lot of really important areas and makes huge assumptions. Getting more women into STEM, while I don't disagree with that, it misses actually valuing the areas that women predominantly work in.

It is more 'women must behave like men' if they want to suceed'. It also misses that there have been and are many women in STEM that have been ignored.omputer programming was a 'woman's job' until men decided it was getting a bit too successful to belong to women.

Humanities are really important. Language is a subjective system. You cannot hope to carry out objective studies and research, without the metaphors, assumptions and biases that make up the phrases in our language being examined and challenged.

You can't govern a country without thorough examination of the language in legislation and the different unintended meanings it will convey.

To be fair Erling Haaland is mostly Norwegian, and had his start in football in their system, not the UK. But no doubt he would have done just as well here given his talent.

• Tory government
• Tuition fees: people are put off from studying creative disciplines (fashion, art, design, acting). or only the wealthy can afford this which means the talent pool shrinks
• art, music and so on not being seen as important in the curriculum
• the high cost of housing: creatives can't afford to live and rent studio space anymore
• funding to the arts has been cut down
• the fact that we are led by big corporations who only see creativity as a way to make money. It sanitises everything and turns it into a product.

I can remember the 90s where the UK was a leading voice in music, fashion and the arts. It all declined after that. Young people could still access affordable housing/squat at the time and that had a big impact on their ability to pursue creative careers.

@noodlezoodle

Actually I think your list has proved the OP's point. Most of what is on it is associated/was started in other decades. McQueen in the 90s, Westwood the 70s and most of the events you listed have been going for a long time.

Nothing new is being added to this list. That is the point...

I'm a primary teacher. There is so much less time in the curriculum for creative arts since the 2014 curriculum revision. I taught for 10 years before that and arts were much more highly valued. Now it's all "facts".

Exactly. Spot on. This is why Tracy Emin has created her studios.

Brexit - it has killed touring, for anyone who isn’t already established.

Similar story with orchestras - when the vehicles carrying all the instruments are only allowed to be in Europe outside uk for a limited period, and travelling from country to country now brings a host of limiting restrictions. Also cabotage fees - and customs duties - transporting your own instruments across borders into other European countries now an absolute nightmare. Hence also why European performers are limiting their visits to the uk. Too much hassle and extra cost.

Brexit - it has killed touring, for anyone who isn’t already established.

Devastating isn't it?
Massive impact on theatre and dance companies as well as bands and orchestras.

It must be a cirmscribed word in 2023!

People get their dopamine hits from short term scrolling on social media so spending less time working perfecting their skills and fewer people can concentrate to appreciate it. Internet now makes art available from all of history and all round the world so harder to for new artists to compete. Now there is also ai.

To be charitable you could say Michael Gove and Dominic Cummins saw this coming and moved our education system away from creating in the arts. Alternatively you could see them taking a sledgehammer to a large chunk of the UK economy also through brexit and removing benefit because people in the arts don't vote conservative

Perhaps you only know those names because they've been famous for decades. There are probably people now who we'll look back on in decades to come and mention them as starting out in the 2020s. It's hard to know at any given time who will be the people that are going to have that sort of legacy