Building An Object Archive
Initially formed from a photo library, the Museum of Youth Culture archive has been growing in size and form since we started collecting stories of growing up in Britain. Years on you can find oral histories, ephemera, literature and objects among the shelves and drawers that make up our collection.
Growing our object collection has been a key focus over the past couple of years as we have challenged ourselves to ask just how youth culture history might be told through tangible items. Just like the stories uncovered in our Grown Up in Britain photo submissions, we see in objects the broad and unique histories that have accompanied youth culture over the years. Every time we interview a photographer we like to ask them what object they would donate to the Museum of Youth Culture, here are their answers.
Text by Esta Maffrett | 02.09.23
Submit your object to the museum's collection here
Brunel Johnson
Fresh white socks. Yeah, that symbolizes my youth. Fresh white socks. Because before when you had a good pair of trainers the fresh white socks would match it. Black socks was for school. White socks, white nike socks were the thing you'd wear to really boost out the crepe.
Michelle Sank
Gosh, one object. A top. like a male or female, upper clothing. A t-shirt or a top. Because I think a lot of that references the time. The time that that image was taken, what was in fashion at that time? It displays evidence of both femininity and masculinity. And you know, what's written on that t-shirt, what the decoration is on that top or t-shirt. Yeah. And it also has the body. It holds the body that is expressing the gesture, or part of the gesture.
Normski
I think one thing that would need to be present in a collection of youth culture would have to be a 12” Technics 1210. Because you know even though it’s all gone digital now and with all this stuff that DJs are using now, they wouldn't have been able to do that if it wasn't for that turntable. A Technics 1210 turntable, an original old school first generation battered one.
Russell Boyce
It would probably be the camera that I took the pictures with to demonstrate that you don't have to have the most fancy thing in the world to actually produce a nice set of pictures. It was a Minolta 100B. I've still got it.
Sanna Charles
You guys have this of mine anyway. It would be my battle vest. The nice thing as well is that the denim jacket that I used was my dad's in the 70s. So it's gone down in family history.
Tony Davis
From my youth there's probably two things. One is a Wigan Casino badge or patch. The first time I went to Casino and I went to the counter and bought a patch, bought two actually. So it'd be those two patches I bought on that night, and the other would be the Joy Division ticket. When I first saw Joy Division play they were supporting the Buzzcocks so the ticket actually says Buzzcocks plus guests, Joy Division is not on the ticket but that’s a story in itself, isn’t it? They only had one album, had just transformed from Warsaw to Joy Division, and went on a big tour as a support for the Buzzcocks. I stood right underneath the mic stand knowing what this guy's about and I was just completely memorized, hypnotized.
Phil Knott
I'll probably put a petrol engine bike in there encased in resin. Like a block of resin lit up which would be fucking gorgeous. That or a Vespa taken to bits and encased in resin all the bits come apart like a model so you can see the bits, the panels and the engine. Something broken down but looks like a diagram. Like an illustration in a manual. They show the engine being broken apart next to each other and you work out that oh this is how you break an engine apart. There's something quite nice about the plans and if it's in resin that would cost a fortune but it would look fucking nice.
Georgina Cook
It would be a dubplate. I would put a dubplate into the museum because they're so amazing. It's such an incredible object. They're basically like records that are made of acetate and they have one tune pressed onto them so the disc only lasts for a certain amount of plays. It’s a part of sound system culture. A producer would get a tune pressed onto a plate and they would give it to their favourite DJ and only that DJ would have it. By the time that got to dubstep it would be that the artist might give their dubplate to three or four DJs to play, still an exclusive thing. Or it might be that they would do a special version for their favourite DJ. I just think they’re such amazing beautiful analogue objects. Because of the way that our society is going and getting so digital there might be a day when they don’t exist anymore. But as long as there is sound system culture there will always be dubplates I think.
John Ingledew
A friend of mine said ‘I don’t know what to do with this, it’s my teenage satchel!’ Every kid going to school has a bag, now kids today have their Nike bags and duffel bags or whatever. I hope someone’s photographing on their iPhone all the different bags that kids take to school these days. But this satchel is from the 1970’s and it’s got her boyfriend's name on it and it’s got reggae on it, it’s got the different bands that she followed. I think it’s an absolutely beautiful little object that perfectly captures being a sixteen year old kid and being in love in the seventies where you write your boyfriend's name on your satchel. Those things that are homemade, back to homemade signs and clothes and outfits, are a very very special part of British culture and a thing we’re particularly good at.
Jennie Baptiste
Maybe some Ray Ban sunglasses. The reason I say that is because during the era when I was heavily into music and the whole MTV thing Ray Bans were really cool. I had some but I didn’t have the real Ray Bans. I guess if I'm thinking of something that depicts an error off the top of my head, I would say that.
Beezer
An admission card or a bus pass. Something to move around or something that gets you in like a ticket. People should be able to travel and go to different places and spaces. My dad took my membership card off me when I was 14 going to gigs because you were supposed to be 18 but that was the thing that got me in there.
You should hold on to every hard drive and memory, Keep your memories and keep them safe.
Ellie Ramsden
Probably a pair of Nike Air Max 90’s - the classic grime shoe.
Adrian Fisk
You can put my eye into the museum. My shooting eye is my right eye, you’ll have to wait until i’m not around anymore. Might need a jar of formaldehyde too!
Babycakes Romero
It’s funny because I've been to like a million and one things in my life, all these amazing events and I didn’t keep a single thing, I barely have the memories. I would put all the photos I didn’t take in those eras. Through the 90s I took very little photos but went to a ton of things and even before that, so I would love to have caught a little bit more of it. I know we live in an overly documented era but that’s different and I still would love some of those pictures because they could possibly replace the memories I didn’t keep.
Marie (Skate Gals N Pals)
I’m thinking a skateboard to be honest. A skateboard is just anarchy. When you have a skateboard you can be whoever you want and the skateboard is going to overtake the whole person that you are. People are going to see you on your skateboard and it’s so empowering. It’s very hard to structure and contain a skateboard and I think it is a way that people were able to explore so much creativity, so much fashion and even archiving in terms of taking videos and pictures. So many communities have flourished, not only in the western world but looking at countries in Africa they are starting out skate communities. So just with a wooden piece with wheels you can really be free, have a sense of freedom. So I would put a skateboard and then explain it like that.
Neil Massey
I’m a total hoarder and I love that I've hoarded everything. I've got rave whistles still with fluoro paint on, and random things from gigs / festivals. So, I would give my rave tapes. I’ve got Kiss FM Radio recordings from 90 - 91 just as it was going legal. At the time I was in Hampshire listening to this pirate station with my tape player pressing record and play, quickly pausing if something I didn’t like came on. So it would end up as some crude kind of chopped up mixed tape. I was trying to be a DJ, everybody wanted to be a DJ in the 90s, being in a band wasn’t cool at that point. So this is a hilarious little goldmine capturing the music and spirit of that time.
Anita Corbin
When I was 14 I went to see Bowie with a schoolmate at Hammersmith Odeon, we sat right up at the back and the tickets cost £1.50. He was larger than life and the band was fantastic. The band and Bowie all had this androgynous nature, as a 14 year old girl it was amazing to see the way culture, music, style and fashion were opening up, London was very much ahead of the game on all those things. If I had to put something into the museum it would be my worn out Ziggy Stardust album or the gig ticket. I went over to Rod Stewart in the interval and asked him very cheekily if I could get an autograph on the ticket….and he said yes!
Lucy McCarthy
I used to have these flip flops in the 90s that had an inflatable bit on them. They were silver, really cool, they were quite heavy and thick and they had an inflatable section over them that had liquid in it with a little sign that would go up and down. They were really comfortable for dancing but they also looked really different and unusual. They were inspired by a designer called Patrick Cox, a famous shoe designer in the nineties who had a pair of jelly shoes that had a plastic finish and the heel was transparent, filled with a liquid snow storm and it had the Eiffel Tower in it. They remind of how playful and subversive the nineties were, the Kevin and Perry attitude of taking the piss out of yourself.
Chloe Ackers
I’d say my denim jacket. Because I like a good denim jacket as weird as that sounds. I feel like it’s the core of your wardrobe and it travels with you everywhere, it goes through so much. It becomes a part of you and you customise it with patches that show your personality. I know my denim jacket personally because I grew up with it and still have it now, the patches would change depending on what music I was into at the time or where I was going. It lived with me and saw all the things I saw while I was growing.
Confused Cu1ture
Raving shoes… wait… the drip! Oh my gosh, the way that people dress at raves, the pieces of clothing but the shoes! Osiris D3’s. They’re like the best skate and raving shoes, they’re just so thick and vibey.
Bex Wade
I would donate something from my own LGBTQIA+ archive. Probably the tube ticket took me into London to my first Pride in 1999. I still have it! Because it felt like, as cliché as this sounds, it was a ticket to my freedom. It was a ticket to the rest of my life.
Ben Brooks
Do you remember those beanies that had a trim or peak? Those were fucking ugly. I don’t know why people had one, but I had one. It had the same beanie material, but it had like this tiny trim on the front of a normal beanie. Keep it locked away so it never returns, that'd be it.
Submit your object to the museum's collection here