The big events

“The time has come to say fair’s fair, To pay the rent, now to pay our share, The time has come, a fact’s a fact, It belongs to them, let’s give it back” Midnight Oil, ‘Beds are Burning’

The 80s may be remembered as one big party but around the world the decade was also a time of social upheaval and extremes: prosperity and recession, celebration and disaster, soaring salaries and unemployment, cold war rhetoric and perestroika. Alongside the ‘greed is good’ philosophy, concern about the environment, the threat of nuclear war and third world poverty galvanised public action and protest. This section of the exhibition looks at some of the big events and movements that defined the decade.