From June 8 to July 17, The Glass Room at Colston Hall will host Sound System Culture: Bristol, a new exhibition celebrating the history of reggae sound systems in our city.
The exhibition is the first instalment in a three-city nationwide tour that will also take in Birmingham and London, and is the work of Al 'Fingers' Newman, who produced the brilliant 'Clarks In Jamaica' book and Mandeep Samra, who, along with Newman and Paul Huxtable, was behind the book that sowed the seed for this project, 2014's 'Sound System Culture: Huddersfield'.
As well as photography, archive film footage, audio recordings and memorabilia, the exhibition will include Heritage HiFi, a specially built vintage system including a full sound rig and selection of vinyl with a dubplate cut specially for the project featuring sound clips of original Bristolian soundmen. The project will also be supported by a live event at Malcolm X Centre in St Pauls featuring local reggae staples Enterprise Sound System, Jah Lokko and Sir Bastian on Saturday June 27.
You can check a selection of images from the exhibition below, and for more information head to the event's Facebook page.
See more images of Bristol sound systems in our exclusive gallery of 1980s Bristol by Beezer.
Enterprise Imperial HiFi and friends, circa 1977
Photo courtesy of the Michael House collection
Alpha & Omega sound system on St Nicholas Road, St Pauls Carnival, July 1991
Photo © Mark Simmons Photography
Lionpulse sound system, founded in 2013 by General H and Live&Direk
Photo: Gary Thomas
Heritage HiFi sound system, built for the Sound System Culture project by Paul Axis
Photo: Elliot Baxter
Flyer for a Leroy Smart concert at the Bamboo Club, 25 Feb 1977
Photo courtesy of the Donovan Jackson Collection
Big Roy and his brother Ferdie, Sir Jay Sound System, 2015
Photo: Al 'Fingers' Newman