The Museum of Youth Culture Opens Its Doors to an Ongoing History of Adolescence.

After spending the past 30 years as nomads, collecting photographs, ephemera and objects to illustrate the fleeting wonder that is being a teenager, The Museum of Youth Culture has finally opened its permanent residence in Camden. 

There is a sense of timelessness that comes with the Museum’s opening in St Pancras Campus. The beat up yet brightly coloured four door car sat at the building’s entrance feels almost comically displaced sitting amongst the glossiness of the new build estate like an 80s time machine. Inside is a cafe and bar that is hoped to satiate the modern teens cry out for third spaces. Decorated with worn leather couches, tables, a photo booth and the gift shop collaboration with Rough Trade, it seems likely that it will achieve its goals. The space sits comfortably at a crossroads of teenage hangouts through time. There is something entirely familiar about it – feeding into the yearn for nostalgia that many young people today experience while remaining true to the essence of what venues like this were for those that lived through them. In the basement is a homage to young people. Three exhibitions dominate the basement; An Incomplete History of Youth Culture, Subculture Street Party and Things I Lied to My Parents About. 

In its original form, The Museum of Youth Culture existed as a collection of archives. Forgotten polaroids found in draws, photos of nights out and casual hang outs – initially brought together under the editorial eye of Jon Swinstead, creator of the 90s magazine, Sleazenation. Yet as time went on and more images of young people through the ages joined the collection, each with their own unique depiction of teenagehood, the editorial curation gave way to an organically evolving archive. As Jamie Brett, one of the original team members and now Creative Director, states, “it’s not for us to say we don't think that is youth culture. If someone says, ‘this was my youth’, that's their youth”. 

This open door policy for submissions has created a unique collection, featuring both the obscure and the mainstream. Hundreds of images of teens through the ages are embedded on the walls, rather than hanging as temporary, removable pieces. Here, teenagehood is an ongoing, permanent experience. Photographs of 1950s Teddy Boys share space with 90s goths and 2010s hipsters for An Incomplete History of Youth Culture, all of them submitted by the public. Each era is punctuated by the music that dominated at the time but they aren’t presented in separated sections. Instead there is an emphasis on the evolution of one teenage moment into the next, showcasing the chronology of how we ended up in the present. By acknowledging that the history of adolescence is far from being complete, the exhibition opens itself up to the possibilities of future contributions as a living archive.The boundaried walls between today’s youth and the young people of yesterday are collapsed in this space making way for patrons to see how the threads of time bind each generation together. 

Things I Lied to My Parents About is a tongue in cheek space – the brainchild of the museum’s youth collective. The exhibition is an honest insight into the modern teenagers mind, featuring a short film asking people the lies they told their parents and a wall of confessions ranging from secret tattoos to sneaking out to parties across the country. A Nike Tech hangs on the wall as a recognition of how young people find ways to incorporate individuality into their school uniforms. The deep dive into Daytimers, a subculture of young South Asian teens circumventing strict curfews with secret daytime parties, speaks to the unintentional nature of how subcultures come to be that Swinstead highlights. “I was a goth in a village, but I didn’t know that I was until I found people like me”. In a similar sense, Daytimer DJs like DJ Ritu and DJ Radical Sista were born out of a sense of necessity for self expression within restrictive environments, eventually becoming cemented in a growing Asian underground scene in Britain. In the centre of the room is a tribute to the quintessential teenagers bedroom at the height of the pandemic. For those who experienced that specific time as a teen, it’s a gut punching realisation that the mundaneity of logging onto Google classroom or Microsoft Teams for an online lesson has become a historical period worthy of commemoration. The Monster cans on the desk was a clear indication of the attention to detail dedicated to the space. It is obvious that the youth collective were given true control over how to represent themselves.  Evidently, subcultures are a big point of emphasis within the museum. The dedicated, permanent exhibition, Subculture Street Party, is a testament to this aspect of youth. The exhibition feels like a continuation of An Incomplete History of Youth Culture but honing in on a shared love of partying that transcends chronology. A history of partying, raves, hanging out and unbridled teenage expression fills the room. Outfits from different eras hang from the ceilings as a playlist ranging from The Smiths to Wiley plays in the background. A fully reconstructed phone booth, with a working phone, beckons you to leave a voicemail or listen to the ongoing oral histories of those that have already done so. This is the foundational essence of the museum. The expansiveness of the collection is fully on show here, placing photos taken by normal people of their lived teenage experiences beside shots taken by pros like Jennie Baptiste, Normski and Georgina Cook. Curatorially, the exhibition doesn’t shy away from diversity, highlighting that several different subcultures co-existed harmoniously in the same time period. 

At the heart of it all is a sound system built by the legendary DJ, artist and educator Linett Kamala. As the first ever female DJ to perform at Notting Hill Carnival in 1985 at the tender age of 15, Kamala was initially unaware of how impactful her initial performance had been, “I only started talking about it in 2019 when I became a board member [of Notting Hill Carnival]”. To her, the recollection of that performance had been lost to time. Although she knew photos were taken, she wasn’t able to get her hands on one until her mid-twenties. Now at home in The Museum of Youth Culture, Kamala’s legacy has been given a place of pride. Public Programming Manager Lisa Der Weduwe referred to Kamala’s inclusion in the exhibition as an artist and a part of youth history as “a breaking down of the barriers of a museum and what a museum is and who should be in a museum”.  Ultimately, this is what the Museum of Youth Culture is all about – commemorating the most talked about yet most underrepresented period of life in Britain through the ages. When you get a chance to go, survey the walls and try to find your subculture.