The Spirit of ’67: Portsmouth’s Summer of Love and its Legacy

We welcome a new, temporary exhibition which opens today at Portsmouth Guildhall and is available until 8th January 2018.

The exhibition, created by Dave Allen and hosted by the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries, marks the 50th anniversary of the so-called ‘Summer of Love’ with a focus on Portsmouth in the late 1960s and the legacy of those interesting times.

The familiar histories tell tales of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, swinging London and young people with flowers in their hair and bells round their necks, traveling in their thousands to San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district to join the hippies there. The histories of those times also tell us that after the explosion of colour and new sounds of 1967, the following year’s revolutionary spirit became more political and less peaceful, leading to some terrible events in the immediate aftermath such as Altamont, Manson and Kent State.

Dave Allen’s book, Autumn of Love: How the Swinging Sixties & the Counterculture came to Portsmouth is available from Portsmouth Guildhall and Waterstones.

The Spirit of ’67: Portsmouth’s Summer of Love and its Legacy temporary exhibition is part of an ongoing programme hosted by the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries (CCI) at the University of Portsmouth in partnership with Portsmouth Cultural Trust, the operators of the Guildhall.

It is FREE to view the exhibition, 10am – 4pm weekdays. Please check weekend opening times with Portsmouth Guildhall Box Office on 023 9387 0200.

Comments

‘Southsea dinosaur’ returns

Luna Park 2021, an eagerly anticipated new public artwork for Portsmouth designed by internationally renowned artists Ivan Morison and Heather Peak of Studio Morison will be launched on 2 October 2021 on a celebratory day in Southsea Common. The 1.4 metres bronze sculpture is a tribute to the original 53-foot high 2010 artwork Luna Park, which tragically burned down on Southsea Common. The artists will unveil a new sculpture that responds to ten years of public demand to ‘bring back the Southsea Dinosaur’. The new public artwork will be located within a direct sightline to the position of the original Luna Park sculpture. It will sit on top of a fossil Portland stone plinth with a QR code which when scanned with a smartphone will connect to an Augmented Reality experience. People will be transported to a digital rendering of the original artwork, seemingly standing life-size in front of them on Southsea Common. Viewers will also be able to use their mobile devices to visit a...

I Am Only Human After All film premiere

Portsmouth Film Society (PFS) continues to deliver on its mission to help break down social barriers and unite diverse cultures with the premieres of four short films on 30 May at the New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth. Portsmouth citizens from all backgrounds have come together to tell their stories. Many people will be able to identify with the difficult subjects of these films; homelessness, substance misuse and recovery, disability and multiculturalism. Whether they have experience of these topics themselves, or only in passing, PFS hopes that projects like these will encourage discussion amongst their viewers. These short films are the result of a 20-week course held at the University of Portsmouth where participants were introduced to all aspects of film-making including script writing, casting, directing, filming and editing. They then became the producers, directors, screenwriters and actors in their own films. The program also included lectures by local film makers and an...

Light the barbie!

On Friday we kicked off the weekend with drinks at the Florence Arms and listening to Fox Elipses in the background (or the other bar). But apparently his songs were depressing, so just as well that I could only hear bits. This was followed by a barbecue on Saturday. It's lovely to share a meal with friends. This time we got the timing right too, so that the food came in stages and the conversation flowing between sips of wine.

SouthseaScene

Search This Blog