IN A SWEET HARMONY
Sweet Harmony: Youth of Today at the Saatchi Gallery recaptures my favourite era of the 90s, the world that emerged from the Detroit acid house scene. Acid house migrated from post-industrial Detroit to the dance floors of gay clubs in New York and London and, fortunately for me, to illegal raves in warehouses and farmers' fields across the UK in the early 90s, where I was studying at the time. This is a personal essay.
Sweet Harmony
Saatchi Gallery · 2019
Sweet Harmony: Youth of Today relives the Second Summer of Love on its 30th anniversary through the voices and eyes of those who experienced one of the most significant counter-cultural phenomena in musical history. The show has a broader sweep than most, drawing together work and images from the 1950s to the present day, covering rave culture, subcultures, and different voices. "When we were doing our research, we found the narrative was so male-driven," says curator Kobi Prempeh. "What's been great about this show is that we've really championed female voices."
The exhibition features multimedia installations, audio-visual works, typographic accounts, photography, live music events, and panel discussions by the architects and influencers giving personal insight into the movement. "It brings together contributors from past and present, championing new, celebrating current and re-positioning revered artists closely linked to the story," says Saatchi Gallery Director Philly Adams, who is the creative force behind the show. "I've long been thinking about creating this exhibition for its historical importance and relevance to the music scene today."
"Rave was a formative moment for our country. It had that level of impact on our society in subtle ways that we cannot even measure. It shifted things."
Kobi Prempeh, curatorCurator Kobi Prempeh grew up just on the border of Kent. "It was very white. I was very often the only black person." He was 16 when he went to an old building in Islington where every floor had been taken over and dedicated to a different kind of music. "That night I was surrounded by people that looked like me. My own narrative began to shift just by being there on the dance floor." Later he started DJing, and it was through that line of work that he first met Philly Adams. Prempeh points in particular to French artist Aida Bruyere's project Special Gyal, recording female-only dancehall dance-offs. "What she's celebrating here is women being empowered by using their athleticism, their muscularity, using their bodies in a free and expressive way. It's a celebration of black culture, but it's also about how international it is."
Irvine Welsh is one of the definitive literary voices of the 90s UK rave and acid house generation. Beyond penning era-defining books like Trainspotting and Ecstasy, he has actively served as a curator, DJ, and cultural historian for the electronic music scene. He is one of the curators of Sweet Harmony: Youth of Today.
Irvine Welsh Returns to the Rave with a New Track → Beatportal
When 1994's Criminal Justice Act curbed free party culture, Tom Hunter bought a bus and went to Europe to sample free festivals there. After relocating from Dorset to London at 15 and a stint as a tree pruner in the Royal Parks, Hunter enrolled at what was then the London College of Printing in 1991. During his time at college he got involved in the squatting scene in Ellingfort Road, Hackney, a thriving community of travellers, converted vans and derelict buildings that became the central topic of his 1994 graduation show. His images show the heady spirit of the 1990s and why rave has never died.
Ted Polhemus, Nice Tripsies 1993, Saatchi Gallery
