The Museum of Youth Culture is to open in a permanent space in Camden, London in December, with plans to expand to Birmingham and Glasgow over the next four years.
The museum has previously operated as a pop-up and online space, celebrating the lives of young people and youth culture.
It has now signed a 15-year lease on a 6,500sq foot custom-designed space in London’s St Pancras Campus development in Camden, which will house evolving rotations of displays as well as a cafe, record shop and collections archive.
Once open, the museum will include three galleries for exhibitions, events and other programming. The downstairs Youth Gallery will be programmed, curated and run exclusively by young people. Entry to all the museum will be free, with the exception of ticketed events.
“As an organisation, we don’t want to be too heavily reliant on public funding,” the museum’s founder Jon Swinstead told Museums Journal. “Modern museums – especially smaller ones without deep pockets like us – have to have commercial strands within what they do to give you a decent amount of core revenue.
“We’ve build that up over time, working with brands on different work from licensing and education to product design, and that revenue will allow us to grow faster than just relying on donations.”
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A membership scheme with seven tiers of support has also been launched to help support the work of the museum.
The museum is being designed in-house with support from its landlord W.RE, a London-based real estate developer and asset management firm, with a focus on underperforming real estate to drive strong social, environmental and financial outcomes.
It has also partnered with companies such Monitor Audio Group, which will provide all the new venue’s AV, as a well as Native Instruments and Plugin Boutique, which are supporting the museum’s educational music production workshops through their music-making tools.
“Our purpose is about inspiring young people and using everyday experiences of youth to inspire people to go out and be creative,” Swinstead said. “Everyone has been young, so our work is really intergenerational.
“We’re creating a space for stories that have often been overlooked but are essential to understanding who we are. Youth culture drives innovation, challenges norms, and creates communities - it’s one of the most powerful forces in society.”
The Museum of Youth Culture aims to open a new museum in a new development in the Digbeth area of Birmingham in 2027 and another in Glasgow the following year.