Screening of 'Stories from the She-Punks' at The Museum of Youth Culture

We were invited to show the documentary as part of the Up Yours! Collective's celebration of Poly Styrene's life on Sunday evening. At first I wondered if it might be better for Gina to do the presentation herself, but she asked me to join her. The moderator Marie Aleth Skov was perfect for the panel, because she is an academic based at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and as such was able to have a neutral overview of what the film is about, and the ways in which it relates to the punk community of 50 years ago.

We were perched on a huge sound-system for the Q&A session, and talked about the origins of the film and what we'd brought to it as individuals- and the wonderful screening we had at The British Library in 2016. Some of the musicians from the documentary came along- Enid Williams came all the way from Hastings, and Gaye Black was there. It was a varied audience in terms of age and gender, which was really good. I don't think many people had seen it before.

The Museum of Youth Culture is housed in a lovely building that has just enough of the meanwhile space about it to make it feel very friendly, which I greatly appreciated. They have an extensive education programme and a team of paid volunteers: it must take a lot of energy to run it. The Up Yours! Collective have put together an extensive exhibition of art, photographs and music that illustrates the London end of punk comprehensively, and that is proving very popular. It's free to get in to the exhibition and there is a very accommodating café there too.

You can watch the film here now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zki9nj8tjZA&t=2103s