Notting Hill Carnival 1989 by Matthew Smith
We all love spending hours trawling through Instagram, becoming all wide-eyed at the cracking images of the subcultures that have been and gone whilst longing for the days no one was glued to their phone. All kinds of ironic we know, but we’re all guilty. Thankfully, Youth Culture Archive is here to get us off the gram and educated on the “styles, scenes and sounds forged by young people over the last 100 years.” Thanks to a successful Kickstater campaign with a generous backing from Fred Perry who recently used Gavin Watson and George Plemper photographs from the archive for the latest Raf Simons x Fred Perry collection, Youth Culture Archive have raised £18,000 to open both a physical space and online epicentre – documententing youth movements spanning right through from hippies and first-generation skinheads to sound system culture and the rise of acid house amidst the Second Summer of Love in 1989. Originally spawned from the archives of seminal magazine Sleazenation which was shut in 2003, the collection has grown to over 100,000 images, slides and objects chronicling the impact the youth of yesterday has played in shaping the culture of tomorrow.
Working with the Mayor of London along with Google, V&A, Dr. Martens and Depop, Youth Culture Archive plans to open the online space late in the month, with a seven-day Central London exhibition co-inciding with the launch. By Summer 2020, the Archive plans to launch the Museum of Youth Culture Education space which will run workshops and events in-studio as well as stints in the Barbican, Southbank Centre and Village Underground. So whether you’re a UKG head, or more in-tune with your Northern Soul, the Museum of Youth Culture is something worth getting excited about.
The Online Museum of Youth Culture plans to launch September 2019.
