This project will amplify the unheard voices of youth culture history by launching a radical acquisition campaign and online events programme utilising both digital and in-person scalable collection strategies. In order to break the traditional museum mould in response to the impact of COVID-19, we need to build a truly representative Museum of Youth Culture for the UK. Amplified Voice Incorporates a major Summer 2022 exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry.
With thanks to National Lottery Players and the ongoing support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
This 18 month long project hands over the Museum keys to the public, providing the digital tools and skills needed to ask questions about their own localised scenes, styles and subcultures forged by young people. How can we show the ways a Carlisle Punk differed from their London counterpart? What were first jobs like in Glasgow? First loves in Newcastle?
We're making the case that youth culture is a vital and increasingly important part of our national heritage and identity. It's now time we turn the lens onto regional Britain. This project will target urgent geographical gaps we have identified in our collections, steering the Museum away from the cultural bias of the capital and turning up the volume on voices in more isolated regions of Britain.
Birmingham
Bolton
Carlisle
Coventry
Newcastle
Glasgow
Online Cultures (with a focus on LGBTQIA+, Social Media Platforms, Fandom, Gaming)
how you can get involved
This is a real people's project, so there are loads of different ways that you can get involved with this project!
- Submit your stories of being young and be part of the Museum of Youth Culture
- Volunteer with us and get experience in digital archiving skills
- Want the Museum to come to your down to your town? Drop us an e-mail to chat about your idea and how we can work with you to collect local stories.
submit your story for the project below!
some of the stories we have been collecting from across the uk
Cathy looking for a ride between Leeds and Carlisle in the depths of winter, UK, 1990s. "In the late '80s and early to mid-'90s my friends and I used to "follow" bands (many, including New Model Army, Levellers, Back to the Planet, The Sea, The Mission), hitching around the UK and in Europe, to gigs and festivals, often doing entire tours. We'd live off our giros and money made by busking or begging, blag guest list places or get snuck in by the band or crew, , sleeping after gigs on strangers' floors (many of whom would become friends I still see, 30 years later), in parks and bus stations, eating thrown-out motorway service station sandwiches (not that grim, we often had an amazing choice!), carefree, bulletproof and fearless (I wouldn't let my teenage son hitch around the way we used to, at his current age!). Tearing festival and gig posters off walls and bringing them home from Hungary was, somehow, worth it, for the memory. We didn't take many photos, camera film was expensive and so were cameras. It was a wonderful time, the likes of which haven't come around again, unlike many youth cultures and fashions."
Three young men pose for a photograph, Milngavie, East Dunbartonshire, Scotland, UK, Late 1960's/early 1970's. "Growing in Milngavie just north of Glasgow reminds me of the the tight knit community it once was and how we all stuck together as friends and family. Many things have changed over the years and there is a certain loss of community but like everything, changes happen but images from the past keep the memories strong and this will help grow the future".
