Our Subcultures Interest Group (SIG) here at UAL was established by a group of PhD students and research staff in 2019. It was on the back of a symposium held as part of Subcultures: Then and Now, a year-long series of events to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Streetstyle: from sidewalk to catwalk, a seminal fashion exhibition staged at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
The group has evolved and grown significantly since then with interests now spanning a wide range of subcultural practices, from early be-bop jazz to glam rock, punk, post-punk, the music press, club cultures, acid house, black metal, skateboarding, contemporary pop and digital online communities.
This is a genuinely multi-disciplinary group, reflecting a range of intersecting fields including history, cultural studies, sociology, fashion, musicology and the creative arts. The range of methodologies utilised within the group includes ethnography, subcultural theory, semiotics and discourse theory along with practice-based and practice-led research employing painting, photography, graphic design, journalism, sound arts, film, creative writing and illustration.
Our aim is to introduce the SIG to a wider audience, to encourage others to come forward with their own research themes and to further establish the group as a loose-knit collective of researchers from many fields of practice and theoretical positions united by a shared interest in subcultures and a willingness to embrace an eclectic, multidisciplinary and (perhaps) unconventional approach to our subject in the context of an art and design institution that appreciates innovation, creativity and the role of practice in research.
We are a diverse and informal collective and forum open to anyone with any interest in subcultures, especially music, style and youth cultures, and their intersections. We hold regular meetings, host film screenings and even produce a newspaper. More plans are on our agenda. If you’d like to know more about the group or want to get involved, then contact us at k.quinn@fashion.arts.ac.uk or r.bestley@lcc.arts.ac.uk.
Post-Grad Interest Groups at UAL
A growing number of issue specific, cross-disciplinary interest groups led by postgraduate students and academics are supported by us.
These groups connect creatives with shared research interests across different subject areas.
Go back to the Post-Grad Interest Group Directory
