So for me, this was the last in a trio of events making '50 Years of She Punk!'. At the Museum of Youth Culture, the curators have put together a very special collection of art and artefacts that very ably reflects the contribution of women in punk from 1976 to the present. This is absolute confirmation that punk, whatever it was, went way beyond the realms of simply music and fashion. There was of course music and fashion aplenty but there was also so much more... every discipline within art found expression through punk, literature, poetry, film making... In the staid environment of 1970's Britain those involved with punk saw the traditional barriers to art and creativity and kicked them down. In this respect women put the boot in particularly hard! Poly, Gaye, Pauline, Siouxsie et al changed the narrative for women in the music industry.
The exhibition at The Museum of Youth Culture pulls together original punk memorabilia, photography (many of the images on show being unknown to me) and artwork produced by the She Punks. If you have an hour or two and you are down Camden way you could do a lot worse than sticking your head in to this!
Poly Styrene by Caris Jackson
(2023)
Jordan by Linder
(2002)
"... the streets were a battleground... all of the punk women spoke of that sense of running the gauntlet every time they went out of the front door..."
Linder, artist and Ludus vocalist.
Shirt designs by Pauline Murray and worn on stage with Penetration.
Ari Up by Gina Birch
(2024)
Poly Styrene by Gina Birch
(2025)
It's fair to say that The Stranglers did not feature heavily in an exhibition concerned with women in punk! Perhaps not surprisingly the only mention of them was courtesy of the scalpel of Gaye Black, an early admirer of JJ Burnel's bass sound.
Gaye Black
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