Artists are prophets of doom – we need them more than ever

I’d like to say I’m happy to be celebrating The Skinny’s 20th anniversary. But the truth is, I’m fucking devastated. You don’t stumble into your fifth decade only to cheerfully toast the passing of two of them – especially when they didn’t so much occur as disappear into a yawning sinkhole.

The Skinny launched the year after before I from art school, back in 2006. The vibe – at least compared to now – was almost optimistic. Sure, we were mired in a post-9/11 malaise, at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the air still seemed to hold a trace of hope. People talked about the future like it might actually happen.

But this hope was far from universal. At art school, some of my peers had already formed a prescient vision of the future – one where climate collapse would become the defining story of our lives. While I drank like there was no tomorrow – you could get royally smashed for less than a tenner – my classmates were busy warning there wouldn’t be.

One of them made soup from ingredients scavenged from supermarket skips and served it to the public as a protest against food waste. Another suggested we turn public parks into wheat fields – a contingency plan for when fossil fuels would run dry and crops could no longer reach the cities.

When I first joined art school, I thought students were trendsetters in fashion and style. 20 years on, I realise they were visionaries of a darker kind. These doom-sayers knew exactly what was coming. At the time, I quietly dismissed their apocalyptic auguries – while happily tucking into their bin soup. I had a future to dream about and a present to nurture. Pints were £1 at the student union!

But we’re not students anymore – and the booze is way too pricey. Scotland is falling apart at the seams: the economy’s flatlining and public services are on their knees. Amid all this, years of funding cuts have left the arts under-resourced, struggling to keep up with everything else that’s falling apart around us.

When we strangle the arts, we strangle our ability to imagine what comes next. And even if what’s coming looks far worse than we ever dreamed, we still have to face it. Artists are our early-warning systems – our emergency alerts, buzzing in our pockets whether we like it or not. Take care of your prophets, I say: they’re the ones holding the keys to our despicable end.