Exist To Resist

14.02.2017 | Culture | BY:

With America in the claws of Trump, Britain on the precipice of Brexit and the power of big corporations stronger than ever, a new campaign to launch a book of the social history around protest is perfectly timed.

Having spent years documenting the protests of the late 80s and 90s, Matthew Smith has built up an extensive catalogue of images which embody the rawness and freedom of an earlier age. It was a time of rave culture and parties, where dance music was a refuge for the disenfranchised and the ostracised, uniting disparate sub-cultures into one mass movement.

Exist to resist

Matthew Smith’s archives chronicles events that happened across the UK, and offer a rare and honest insight into the spirit of the times; the photographs depict stories rarely told.

It is now 23 years since Government acted to constrain youth culture in the UK by law and, Smith says “it is time to tell that story from the inside.”

Exist to reisst 4

“My intention was to bear witness to this culture and to provide a positive personal truth in order to counter mass media and political representation of the lowest kind.” Help bring the incredible archives into print by supporting the campaign on kickstarter, and thereby ensuring the legacy of protest and community remains enshrined in the contemporary mind.

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