B.L.U.S.H. The Litany of Curfews performance during the exhibition Spunkt Art Now, Galerie d’art Antoine-Sirois, Sherbrooke, 2020..
Photo : François Lafrance

No Future ?

Oli Sorenson

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Punk first exploded onto mainstream consciousness as a musical genre inducted by the Ramones, coupled with the fashion crazes of Vivienne Westwood, and was loosely stitched into a movement via safety pins, to paraphrase Jon Savage.¹ 1 - Jon Savage, England's Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock (London: Faber and Faber, 1991): 231. Nonetheless, the polymorphous diversity of punk adherents quickly dispels the myth that this scene is made up wholly of teenage nihilist junkies, especially when we consider bands like Crass and the Dead Kennedys. Through their actions in and out of music, these ensembles advocated for progressive policies such as direct democracy, animal rights, feminism, anti-racism, anti-militarism, and environmentalism. Across the spectrum of ideologies that traversed its mindset—from anarchy to DIY principles — punk’s core battle cry has been particularly effective in its ability to negate the more coercive aspects of futurity.

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