You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-1970

This major exhibition explores the era-defining significance and impact of the late 1960s, expressed through some of the greatest music and performances of the 20th century alongside fashion, film, design and political activism.

Highlights on display show the creative, social and legal outputs of revolutionary new ways of living. They include underground magazines from Oz to the International Times; a shopping list written behind barricades during the 1968 Paris student riots; a moon rock on loan from NASA alongside the space suit worn by William Anders, who took the defining ‘Earthrise’ photograph on the Apollo 8 mission; a rare Apple 1 computer; an Ossie Clark costume for Mick Jagger; original artworks by Richard Hamilton; shards from Jimi Hendrix’s guitar; the suits worn by John Lennon and George Harrison on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and handwritten lyrics for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by the Beatles.

Objects are drawn from the breadth of the V&A’s varied collections, alongside important loans to highlight connections between people, places, music and movements across the UK, Europe and the USA. The exhibition focuses on particular environments that defined the cultural and social vanguard of the period, including Carnaby Street in London, clubs and counterculture, the Paris protests of May 1968, World Fairs including Montreal and Osaka, the Woodstock Festival of 1969 and alternative communities on the West Coast of America. Ideological connections are made to the world of 2016, from the election battle to appoint the new president of the most powerful nation on earth to the rights of individuals everywhere to make a difference.