A LIFE WITHOUT PUNK - Event Series Marking 50 Years of Punk - with Guests from Germany and the UK

The year is 1976. Punk changes the world.

Nuclear rearmament and the Cold War shape global politics. In Britain, deep economic discontent prevails: unemployment, high inflation, strikes. New perspectives are lacking - for students, for workers, for young people. Into this void steps the National Front, while simultaneously in youth clubs a cultural awakening stirs: protest and provocation, rejection of the establishment, of high culture, of exhausted rock dinosaurs. It is only a matter of time before this mixture ignites the next big explosion.

Punk becomes a beacon of resistance. Bands spring up like mushrooms - The Damned, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, The Clash, X-Ray-Spex, London SS, Spitfire Boys, The Slits, Wire, Penetration, The Fall, XTC, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Joy Division, Adverts, Eater, Gang Of Four, Chelsea, The Outcasts, Rudi, The Undertones, The Cure, Generation X, The Boys, Stiff Little Fingers, 999, Lurkers, Subway Sect, Adam & The Ants, Ian Dury & The Blockheads and hundreds more. From the start, punk is also a movement in which women stand against rock machismo and take the stage: Penetration, The Raincoats, X-Ray Spex, The Slits, Young Marble Giants, Siouxsie.

A LIFE WITHOUT PUNK is dedicated to these formative years and brings together protagonists from England and Germany to reflect on, celebrate and continue the phenomenon of punk and new music. The event series tours with changing ensembles through six German cities - often at the very sites of that era. It is accompanied by a pop-up photo exhibition by Sabine Schwabroh and projections by Christian Baumjohann, Archiv B.