Punk 1976-78

Different were invited to design part of the Punk exhibition in the Liverpool Central Library after our very own Kate Stewart was appointed Creative Producer. The exhibition was developed and curated jointly by Liverpool Libraries, The British Library and Liverpool John Moores University. The exhibition explored punk’s roots in the French Situationist movement and New York City art-rock scene through to the rise and fall of the Sex Pistols, and the local context with Eric’s and the Liverpool punk scene.

The main exhibition was held in the Hornby Library (1st floor of the Liverpool Central Library) Whilst this is an astonishing example of Edwardian civic architecture, it is a considerable challenge to make a visual exhibition work in a space so ornate – we feel the result succeeded whilst paying respect to the original building fabric. Our system of demountable steel structures and graphics both framed the content and acted as exhibition wayfinding. The design of the wayfinding structures has been designed for repeated re-use, enabling the library to brand future exhibitions in this space.

Marking the 40th anniversary of Punk Rock, the exhibition was on from 3rd November 2018 to 3rd March 2019