The Politics of Documentary Punk Curation

From the early days of forming a band, writing lyrics and performing to an audience there has always been ‘politics’ involved in communicating ideas within the punk community. At first the aesthetic construction of punk and later the dogma of the anarcho-punk scene, overshadowed the individual as central to Punk’s ‘be yourself, so long as you look and think like us’. Of course there has always been opposition which shirks the punk orthodoxy of given movements and scenes. Moments which transcend the conformity as punk events evolved into as a predictable cultural format. I want to reclaim this space after forty years of punk curation and documentary activity. Exploring Gramsci’s notion of ‘an inventory of traces’ I seek to explore the politics of documentary punk curation and the activities around the curation of punk and provide a unique 360 degree insight of selected artifacts curated since 1980’s as a combined video-paper, video screenings, exhibition. This combined artistic activity as a critique of the seemingly unconnected documentary items which make punk histories. I seek to bring to life the documentary elements that otherwise remain hidden due to the necessary constraints of documentary videomaking and place them within concepts of expanded documentary practice which transcends and permeate borders, boundaries and artistic distinction’s in keeping with the punk philosophy. I intend to perform the curation of gathered documented punk elements from a range of existing projects as a backdrop to a video essay production of my own ‘curated’ punk experiences and history.