The Revolution must go on!

Acclaimed exhibition Revolutions: Records and Revels extended by popular demand

Now open until Sunday 6 October | Melbourne Museum

Astonishing fans, critics and radicals of all generations in its opening season, Melbourne Museum announces today that Revolutions: Records and Rebels will extend until Sunday 6 October. Don't miss your chance to take a trip through this extraordinary experience.

17 July 2019

Two people view a record collection — Selections from John Peel's Record Collection

Developed by the team behind the global smash hit David Bowie Is, Revolutions: Records and Rebels brings together more than 600 incredible objects from London's V&A Museum and Museums Victoria's collection to tell the story of 1966-70 as five years that shook the world. The scale is "mind-bending".

Charting seismic shifts in music, politics, fashion, design and technology, this blockbuster exhibition is not just a trip down memory lane. It is a kaleidoscopic vision of the power of people.
As Victoria Broackes (Senior Curator, V&A Museum) noted to The Guardian Australia, "I hope that in its own small way, Revolutions can be a catalyst for people to understand that astonishing change can happen – change has happened – when people get together."

Exhibition with objects from the 60s on display — Revolutions: Records and Rebels

Don your headphones and hear the needle drop on the likes of Dylan, Herbie Hancock, Nina Simone and Joan Baez as Sennheiser’s specially-designed soundtrack responds to your surroundings in real time. Prepare yourself for "a stirring sonic experience".

As this weekend marks fifty years since our first steps onto the moon, read handwritten reflections from Altona Primary School students beside a model Apollo Lunar Command module, the Djinn lounge chair featured in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and a space-age jumpsuit from iconic Australian designer Prue Acton.

Enter Swinging London past a Vidal Sassoon hair salon, Mick Jagger’s jumpsuit and gorgeous stills from Antonioni’s Blow-Up. Behold a Jeff Banks mini-dress worn by Sandie Shaw, Bill Gibb’s sketches for Twiggy and John Peel’s personal record collection.

Feel the first tremors of Beatlemania rise to a fever pitch as you stand before John Lennon’s original Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band suit, his signature rounded spectacles and handwritten lyrics to 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'.

Witness resistance, solidarity and horror on the streets of Paris, the grounds of Kent State University and outside the Stonewall Inn. Hear voices call out from the frontlines of Vietnam and the fight for recognition of Australia’s First Peoples in the 1967 Referendum.

See the crest of a new wave in feminism forming as the pill is introduced and The Female Eunuch is published. Ponder the counterculture’s legacy of exclusion and misogyny on the frontiers of women’s liberation.

Sink into the floor as The Who dive into "My Generation" inside the exhibition's stunning Woodstock audiovisual experience. Outside, come face-to-face with Roger Daltrey's original outfit, Pete Townshend's smashed guitar and Jefferson Airplane frontwoman Grace Slick’s signature stage costume.

In a moment of unprecedented challenges, Revolutions: Records and Rebels offers a vital chance to reflect on the power of collective action and cultural upheaval. Come together.