Festival of Ideas: Post-Rave Britain Archive Roadshow

What object or image do you think tells the story of rave’s impact on the world? How does the image or object capture your own experiences of a Britain shaped by rave culture? How is it linked to our shared histories? Researchers and students from the Faculty of Media, Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex have partnered with the Museum of Youth Culture to build a ‘Post-Rave Britain’ Archive, a mix of historical investigation, memory bank, and collective story-telling space.  We explore rave as a subject, as a way of thinking, and as a means to tell the history of our lives.

You are invited to contribute your image or object to the ‘Post-Rave Britain’ Archive and work together to explore thirty years of British culture, society and politics through the lens of rave. Bring items from yesterday, from thirty years ago, or from any time in between. The Roadshow launches the Archive through a psychedelic combination of interactive presentations, audience participation, audio-visual silliness and guest appearances that promise to turn historical method on its head. Imagine the Antiques Road Show meeting a saucer-eyed Tony Blair in the Hacienda carpark for a performance art seminar and you’re half-way there. Cut-and-paste, upside-down, do-it-together: history making as post-rave culture!