Arts and culture “will be hugely different” post Brexit says h.Club 100’s best artist, Barnaby Barford

Artist Barnaby Barford has spoken out about the impact of Brexit on the British arts and culture, after winning the art, design and craft category at the h.Club 100 awards. Hosted by the Hospital Club in partnership with the Creative Industries Council, the annual awards celebrate 100 influential and innovative people who have made an impact on the creative industries over the past year.

On winning the award, Barnaby said, “I’m worried about everything. It’s possibly the worst thing to happen in my living memory. Arts and culture will persist but I think it will be hugely different without the mix of people, culture dialogue and ease of travel bringing an ideas exchange to the country. The UK will become a smaller place.”

Barnaby is a ceramic artist best known for his Tower of Babel sculpture at the V&A last year, a six-metre-high pile of 3000 bone china shop fronts, each depicting a real shop in London. The artwork explored the public’s sense of “fulfilment through retail” with low-end shops at the bottom and exclusive stores like Harrods out of reach at the top.

Other nominees for the art, design and craft category included Tate curator Catherine Wood and artists Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Marcin Rusak and Prem Sahib. Among the other categories were fashion, film, games, and advertising, marketing and PR, which was won by Google’s Nishma Robb. Nishma is head of marketing and chair of women@google.