‘The arts stop us killing each other’: stars tell Labour how to rescue Britain’s downtrodden culture

Steve McQueen, Tracey Emin, Steve Coogan, Adjoa Andoh, Danny Dyer, Jesse Darling and many more spell out what must be done to restore Britain’s cultural lifeblood, from ending elitism to supercharging libraries – and flooding schools with music

Slashed with a knife: the tender sculpture that hides a shocking but common crime against women

Costanza Piccolomini was physically disfigured by her lover, the Baroque sculptor Bernini: 400 years later her story can finally be told

The big picture: precarious lives and playfulness in a London square

Roland Ramanan spent more than 10 years documenting the evolution of a new public space in Hackney and its many and varied users

The Wendy Award by Walter Scott review – the voice of a bewildered generation

The fourth in this brilliant and painfully funny series finds our self-destructive millennial heroine nominated for an art award – and grappling with gen z sensibilities

‘My flash kept blinding everyone on the dancefloor’: Elaine Constantine on capturing 90s northern soul all-nighters

The UK photographer took these powerful shots of northern soul nights 30 years ago. Now collected in a new book and exhibition, they offer an intimate glimpse of a peculiarly British subculture

On my radar: Mark Leckey’s cultural highlights

The Turner prize-winning artist on a glorious Italian painting, his favourite horror novel, and why he finally started to like podcasts

Protests against arts sponsorship in Britain are killing culture. Be careful what you wish for

Baillie Gifford’s financial support of the biggest book festivals ended after a campaign against its fossil fuel ties. Britain’s arts need more corporate cash, not less

The big picture: Abdulhamid Kircher reflects on his traumatic family history

Kircher’s seemingly innocent shot of his father’s girlfriend having her hair dyed in an Istanbul salon belies the truth about the couple’s reason for visiting

On my radar: Simon McBurney’s cultural highlights

The actor, director and playwright on a delicious social enterprise, a radical climate movement, and his favourite place to commune with the dead

‘Hey pigeon-keeper, flip me on the grill rack!’ The spicy guide to queer Arab slang

Scorpions, grill racks, pigeons – if you want to know what these terms also mean, look up The Queer Arab Glossary, a playfully illustrated new compendium of words running from the affectionate to the derogatory

Sir John Boardman obituary

Archaeologist who became a leading authority on the history of Greek art, with a particular interest in gems and finger rings

‘In South Africa, you hear of disappearance all the time’: one photographer’s search for his sister’s missing years

Lindokuhle Sobekwa has made a moving attempt to retrace the steps of a sibling, now dead, whose decade-long absence left a hole at his family’s heart

On my radar: Golda Schultz’s cultural highlights

The South African soprano on her love of Star Trek, a Stockholm gallery that used to be a squat, and where to find a great negroni in London

Tracey Emin and Imelda Staunton get damehoods in king’s birthday honours

Others honoured from cultural world include the writer Monica Ali, choreographer Wayne McGregor and children’s laureate Joseph Coelho

A Little Art Education by Lynn Barber review – pocket portraits that are a breath of fresh air

Star interviewer, provoker of the Chapman brothers and the woman who made Howard Hodgkin cry… Barber’s slim book about her obsession with artists – particularly those who smoke – is wonderfully entertaining