SPACED OUT!

Rave Culture is a scene, a lifestyle, and a community, based on primitive dancing traditions that have fuelled the nation since the dawn of time. This fashion-based documentary project explores the re-emergence of rave culture as a form of escapism through the eyes of those who were originally part of it. Produced through the use of archival and new artist led photographic images created specifically for this project, the work is curated from the personal experience. The work of artists such as Jeremy Deller and Wolfgang Tillmans paved the way for how the historical and contemporary can co-exist within the context of the fashion spread, and these approaches form the foundations of this project’s contemporary responses. Arguably the political turmoil throughout the 80s and 90s has many similarities to today’s unrest. From folk devils to moral panics, Brexit, the climate crisis and the advancing right-wing parties of Europe have fuelled a new hunger for escapism and community driven action. We have never felt so outside the traditional institutional systems and whilst isolation becomes the norm, the archival image and re-constructed experiences are the new escape tools in the quest of passive resistance and ritual.