THE MAYDAY ROOMS London-based radical resource will hold a launch event for its new ‘Anarcho-Punk Archive’on 18 June 2026.

The archives being drawn together at the MayDay Rooms document the lived history of “social struggles, radical art, and acts of resistance from the 1960s to the present.” The boxes of catalogued materials contains “everything from recent feminist poetry to 1990s techno paraphernalia, from situationist magazines to histories of riots and industrial transformations, from 1970s educational experiments to prison writing,” the MayDay Rooms explain.

Researcher Seth Wheeler will be joined in coversation by Dunstan Bruce from Chumbawamba to discuss the significance, impact and legacy of anarcho-punk and to introduce the materials already available to researchers in the new archive.

The Anarcho-Punk Archive has been built up through donations received by the MayDay Rooms after a call for materials was sent out. A call to which former members of Chumbawamba, amongst many others, responded. Wheeler explains:

While historians accept punk injected new energy into Britain’s ageing anarchist milieu at the end of the 1970s, this convergence largely remains under-documented in the archive. Beyond the odd leaflet or review, anarcho-punk’s effect on anarchist practice has largely escaped the record. To counter this, MayDay Rooms has issued a call for materials – zines, flyers, minutes, posters – to trace how sound and political action co-evolved: what anarcho-punk did to politics, and what politics it created. Among the first to respond were former members of Chumbawamba, whose origins lie in that milieu.

With the collection having reached a critical mass, the MayDay Rooms are now in a position to launch the archive.

MayDay Rooms is pleased to launch its new Anarcho-Punk archive — a growing collection tracing how anarcho-punk helped reignite anarchism in Britain during the 1980s and 1990s.

At a moment when anarchism appeared politically marginal and disconnected from everyday life, anarcho-punk transformed it into a lived, participatory culture rooted in DIY organisation, direct action and collective experimentation. Through gigs, zines, benefit shows, squats, tape trading and self-organised networks, a generation of young people translated anarchist ideas into something tangible, immediate and accessible — building radical infrastructures that extended far beyond music itself.

Drawing on flyers, posters, correspondence, recordings, zines and ephemera, the archive explores how bands and activists created new forms of political participation outside traditional institutions, mobilising around anti-fascism, animal liberation, anti-war organising, squatting and mutual aid. Music became a conduit for political action — reconnecting culture, friendship and everyday survival to collective struggle.

To mark the launch, researcher Seth Wheeler will be joined by Dunstan Bruce of Chumbawamba for a conversation exploring punk’s impact on anarchist organising and radical politics during this period. The evening will also include archival material on display alongside a listening session of anarcho-punk recordings, examining how these songs articulated political ideas, built networks of solidarity and helped mobilise political support for a range of social movements.

Anarcho-Punk Archive Launch (with Seth Wheeler and Dunstan Bruce)
MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH
18 June 2026 | 19:00-22:00
Advance tickets

For more about the Anarcho-Punk Archive, see Seth Wheeler. 2025. Against The Grain: Archiving anarcho-punk’, The Wire, December. https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/collateral-damage/against-the-grain-archiving-anarcho-punk