If you’ve used some of your time in quarantine to sort through old photos and have found some mementoes of your teenage years, or if you’re a teenager yourself, then this museum’s request might be very interesting for you.

youthmuseumglastonbury
The Museum of Youth Culture is interested in the lives of young people from any decade of the past century © John Ingledew / Museum of Youth Culture

The Museum of Youth Culture is “the world’s most comprehensive collection of youth culture content”. It’s a digital archive dedicated to collecting photos and mementoes from young people of every decade of the last century, from the flapper dresses of the 1920s to the punk mohawks of the 1970s to today. And now, the museum has issued its first call for submissions from the public within its “Growing Up in Britain” project.

Read more: Museums are thinking about how to add the coronavirus pandemic to their collections

The museum is looking for photos of your youth – it doesn’t matter when you were a teenager or what kind of photos you have, they’re all potentially great additions to the collection. All you need to do is submit them to the museum together with the story behind it. And even though the project is titled “Growing Up in Britain,” submissions from other parts of the world are very much welcome.

A team picture in black and white
The Museum of Youth Culture is only digital for now, but the plan is to have a physical location by 2023 © Raju Vaidyanathan / Museum of Youth Culture

As part of this crowdsourcing initiative, the museum has also released a whole series of lockdown activities to do at home. Among museum worksheets and colouring-in posters, there’s also a “Memory Sharing Pack,” a tool that will guide you to discovering your own history by giving you tips on how to interview family members and dig up interesting details from their youth.

A picture of a teenage goth girl inside her bedroom
The idea of the Museum of Youth Culture is to highlight the impact young people have had throughout history and how different generations of young people are actually similar to each other © Debbie Graves / Museum of Youth Culture

If you’re interested in submitting your photos and stories or would like to know more about the Museum of Youth Culture, you can check out its official website here.

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