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In the basement of a new-build housing block in Camden, the ventilation system is working flat out. The fans whir like a chainsaw orchestra bouncing around the concrete room as they attempt to deal with a slight damp problem. “This is what it’d sound like if there was a fire!” shouts Jon Swinstead, the driving force behind the Museum of Youth Culture, as he tries to make himself heard above the din.
It’s hard to imagine but in a few weeks this empty, slightly soggy space will be transformed into an institution dedicated to all things teenage – a project Swinstead has been working on in one way or another for almost 30 years.
Opening on 15 May, the museum has amassed a 100,000-item archive that tells the story of British youth subcultures from mods and rockers, to ravers and emo.
Dotted around the team’s temporary workspace are giant pictures of grime greats, slides of Gavin Watson’s work documenting skinheads, and a Raleigh Chopper, which Swinstead admits is one part of the collection that’s “worth a few quid”. “We’ve also got an original Sony Walkman,” he adds. “It has two inputs, one that says ‘guys’ and the other ‘dolls’.”
They’ve invited the British public to donate items, such as an enormous collection of school leavers’ shirts, with personalised messages scrawled in felt tip. Elsewhere there are personalised handbags and customised shirts dedicated to two-tone bands. It’s a bottom-up form of curation, which the team think is befitting cultures that were handmade, on the margins and foundational to the young people who created them.
“We got a donation from a man called Steven who was going to early punk gigs in 1976 but thought he’d get sacked from his apprenticeship if he was identified. So he got a welding mask and stencilled ‘HATE’ across the top,” says Lisa der Weduwe, the community programmer at MoYC. “He also donated a copy of the Evening Standard and he’s in there wearing the mask at a Clash gig.”
Swinstead says the museum is filling an obvious void in the UK, which has an award-winning Young V&A aimed at children, but nothing substantial dedicated to the teen years and the incredible amount of subcultures generated in the UK. “If it exists for childhood, why does it not exist for teenagers?” asks Der Weduwe. “Most of the museums stop curating at 13 or 14, which is when the exciting stuff happens.”
The museum started life in the garden shed of Swinstead, who began collecting photographs capturing the British subcultures that defined the second half of the 20th century.
The collection initially became the photography agency PYMCA, but he changed course after being approached by an arts graduate, Jamie Brett. They both saw the cultural value in the collection and the pair began to think about creating a museum.
They’ve since run pop-up events at We Out Here festival, created a show for Coventry’s City of Culture year, and had a semi-permanent space on Shaftesbury Avenue in central London, but now they’re on the precipice of something entirely different.
The museum will double as an event space, including a Rough Trade shop and a youth club. With a 20-year lease and support from City Bridge Foundation and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Swinstead hopes the museum will become a significant part of the UK’s cultural landscape.
Der Weduwe and Swinstead are quick to bat away the idea that subcultures are on the wane when compared with the myriad tribes that emerged in the 1970s and 80s. “We can’t deny the difference, but it isn’t dead,” says Swinstead. “It’s different today. I just don’t think people run in packs in quite the same way now.”
“If you look at the anime or K-pop scene, they have all the hallmarks of a traditional subculture,” says Der Weduwe. “There’s a style, there’s a visual identity, there’s music – it’s definitely more nuanced and it has definitely become much more fluid.”
