To the Museum of Youth Culture!
It makes sense that MOYC is located on the outer fringes of Camden along St Pancras Way. It’s not my favourite part of town but you don’t want a museum celebrating teenage rebellion stuck on the outskirts of Eltham.
I had been led to believe through various online pieces that MOYC is nothing but a poky cafe with a few artefacts adorning the walls. Think those shitty Hard Rock Cafes from the ’90s but this time with a generational divide having been breached.
This was far from the case. I didn’t have time to enter the cafe upstairs but the main exhibition space down below was bloody brilliant.
The reason for visiting was the God Save the Queen’s exhibition, curated by the Up Yours Collective. As the name suggests it’s the untold story of the role played by some genuine trailblazing females during the Punk Wars.
As the blurb for God Save the Queen states, this isn’t a subcategory of punk: It’s the history itself.
Much of the exhibition has been curated by Celeste Bell, who is the daughter of the amazing Poly Styrene.
There’s also significant input from Lauren Estelle Jones, who was able to borrow extensively from her old man’s archive, the Mick Jones Rock and Roll Public Library.
Punk and nepotism shouldn’t work but God Save the Queen is all the better for having these close family connections.
The main focus for the exhibition is some stunning photos of the main players, captured in all their young, naive, inexperienced, yet still threatening demeanour: the likes of Chrissie Hynde, Vivian Westwood, Pauline Black, Siouxsie, Debbie Harry and Patti Smith all feature.
Many of these shots come from the camera of Dennis Morris, who, along with Don Letts, has become something of the unofficial but still authoritative source of capturing punk on camera.
What I liked about the exhibition was that it stayed clear of all those retrospective clichés. It also celebrated some of the figures who were far more than bit-part players but often get overlooked.
We’re talking the likes of Soo Catwoman and Jordan. Both display a complete don’t give a fuck young teenage attitude in those early shots.
There’s so much to look at in the exhibition and it’s easy to get distracted. There’s plenty of DIY slogans on the walls, along with other artefacts such as original copies of the Sniffin Glue fanzine. The presentation is even punk in its random anarchic display.
A full on sound system shows videos curated by female artists. There were a few tech issues during my visit but that didn’t get in the way of the powerful imagery.
Celeste Bell concludes by adding
“Curating my mother’s archive proved how important it is to protect female countercultural history. Through Up Yours Collective we’re taking that legacy out of the archives and putting it where it belongs: centre stage. Bringing this vision to life through both exhibition and joining iconic street punk on stage is an incredible full-circle moment.”
Up Yours, etc.
