Am You Taping It?
From the collection of
Am You Taping It?
- Walsall
- 1986
Am You Taping It?
Wham or Five Star, which is your favourite pop group? The teenager of the Noose Lane Arts Project in Walsall tell it like it really was growing up in 1986.
It may be technically a little rough-around-the-edges, but this video produced by Jubilee Arts for the Noose Lane Arts Project provides us with a little window into the lives of a group of teenagers in 1986. They talk to the camera answering a series of questions on subjects ranging from family life and holidays, to the all-important fashion and pop music scene. This film lets us see what was important to young people in the years before social media shaped the lives of Britain's teenagers.
Predictably, school doesn't get much love (nothing changes there), but it's the little bits of pop-culture that define this video for anyone who lived through the era. For example, it's easy to forget just how popular Sylvester Stallone was for a brief period, but here he's considered a heart-throb by one young fan, though don't get too big for your boots Sly, you're not really 'rock hard'!
Young people from the Noose Lane art project in Walsall talk about their lives.
Tags
Young Voices: Growing Pains and Teenage Dreams in the Midlands
Was the experience of growing up in the 1980s so different to today?
This collection focuses on youth culture in the years before technology took over. The 1980s was a world without mobile phones or social media, where teenagers met up to talk to one another face-to-face. These young people would be instrumental in pushing technology forward to where it is today. But what did their future look like back then, and what were they hoping for?
Among the films here you'll see offerings from Jubilee Arts, a community arts organisation that ran from 1974 to 1994 in the Black Country. The Jubilee Arts team worked with kids of all ages to produce films with a distinctive, slightly chaotic energy - but the casual, candid filmmaking here leaves us under no illusions as to the lives of Midlands teens.
Also featured are the outlooks of younger children. Whether spending their pocket money or saving their world, they too paint a vivid picture of 80s Britain, though perhaps a slightly less jaded one.
With subjects ranging from 'leaving school at 16' to 'the merits of Sylvester Stallone', immerse yourself in the modest delights of an 80s childhood.
13 videos in this collection
1
Am You Taping It?
2
Class of 87 Preview
3
School Newspaper
4
Anti Vandalism Campaign
5
Rights - Wot Rights!
6
Children and Angels
7
Children's Report on Seal Culling
8
Living in the '80s
9
Children and their Pocket Money
10
Generation 2B
11
Class of '87 - Martin
12
Class of '87 - Phuong
13