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The God Save The Queens collage: cut-out photographs of women in punk on a purple ground, framed by their names

Museum of Youth Culture · Camden

Up Yours! God Save The Queens

Upcoming23 October 2026 – 22 November 2026·Free

The Up Yours! Collective's show on 50 years of women in punk, dedicated to Poly Styrene, with unseen archive material, photography, fashion and new artworks.

Exhibition website

Preview: written before the show opened

From Poly Styrene's own archive you get the original poster for X-Ray Spex at the Roundhouse on 14 May 1978 and her draft artwork for "Oh Bondage Up Yours!". There's also the suitcase Gaye Black of The Adverts took on tour with The Damned.

The show marks 50 years of women in punk. Poly Styrene's daughter Celeste Bell curated it with the Up Yours! Collective, and says working on her mother's archive "proved how important it is to protect female counter-cultural history". Alongside the archive are original works by Linder, unseen art by X-Ray Spex saxophonist Lora Logic, fashion by Zandra Rhodes, new paintings by Gina Birch and photographs by Bob Gruen, Kate Simon and David Corio.

It's in the basement Main Gallery from 23 October to 22 November, and it's free. The museum takes walk-ins but encourages pre-booking.

Look for

  • Poly Styrene's draft for "Oh Bondage Up Yours!"

    Her draft artwork for the X-Ray Spex song is shown with her Germfree Adolescents collage from the same archive.

  • The Roundhouse poster

    X-Ray Spex played the Roundhouse, up the road in Chalk Farm, on 14 May 1978, and this is the original poster for the gig.

  • Gaye Black's tour suitcase

    The Adverts' Gaye Black took this suitcase on tour with The Damned, and her tour postcards sit alongside it.

  • Caroline Coon's Between Parades (1985)

    Women wait in a dressing room under two red lamps, one painting her nails, one having her hair done, with a moonlit sea in the porthole and a note headed "The Rules" on the wall.

  • Gina Birch's portraits of Poly Styrene and Ari Up

    Gina Birch of The Raincoats has painted the singers of X-Ray Spex and The Slits, and the portraits haven't been shown before.

Good for

  • Cheap Culture
  • Nerding Out
  • Out-Of-Town Guests

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Nearby

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ArtFree19 min walk

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