Uploaded January 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Almost everywhere you look, the arts are beset by controversies and cancellations.
Cancel culture has come for the arts – but can the arts survive it? Do bans and cancellations wound artistic expression, or act as a means for audiences and art lovers to hold artists to account? Will a climate of sensitivity readers and diversity box-ticking allow more socially conscious art to grow, or kill off the more unorthodox works that have always pushed at the boundaries of artistic freedom? And why, of all areas of life, does the arts seem to be the focal point in which these culture wars keep playing out?
Speakers:
Dr Tiffany Jenkins - writer and broadcaster; author, Strangers and Intimates: the rise and fall of private life and Keeping Their Marbles: how treasures of the past ended up in museums and why they should stay there
Rosie Kay - dancer; choreographer; CEO and artistic director, K2CO LTD
Winston Marshall - musician; writer; podcast host, Marshall Matters; founding member, Mumford & Sons
Emma Webb - director, Common Sense Society, UK branch; host, Newspeak; commentator; writer; co-founder, Save Our Statues
Chaired by Claire Fox - Director, Academy of Ideas; independent peer, House of Lords; author, I STILL Find That Offensive
Almost everywhere you look, the arts are beset by controversies and cancellations.
Cancel culture has come for the arts – but can the arts survive it? Do bans and cancellations wound artistic expression, or act as a means for audiences and art lovers to hold artists to account? Will a climate of sensitivity readers and diversity box-ticking allow more socially conscious art to grow, or kill off the more unorthodox works that have always pushed at the boundaries of artistic freedom? And why, of all areas of life, does the arts seem to be the focal point in which these culture wars keep playing out?
Speakers:
Dr Tiffany Jenkins - writer and broadcaster; author, Strangers and Intimates: the rise and fall of private life and Keeping Their Marbles: how treasures of the past ended up in museums and why they should stay there
Rosie Kay - dancer; choreographer; CEO and artistic director, K2CO LTD
Winston Marshall - musician; writer; podcast host, Marshall Matters; founding member, Mumford & Sons
Emma Webb - director, Common Sense Society, UK branch; host, Newspeak; commentator; writer; co-founder, Save Our Statues
Chaired by Claire Fox - Director, Academy of Ideas; independent peer, House of Lords; author, I STILL Find That Offensive
