Punkhouse

Punk culture is nomadic; the punk house is the outpost. This work captures the already-weathered face of a 17-year old runaway, the soft hands of a record collector, the mohawked show-goers, the dirty dishes in the sink, the silk screened posters on the wall and the gardens growing up between the cement of city blocks.

The “punk house” may come in any number of forms. The most common type is often where a large group of like-minded punks cram into a house usually intended to accommodate two or three people, resulting in low rent and, thus, extended hours of leisure for the residents to pursue their true interests.Punk House features anarchist warehouses, feminist collectives, tree houses, workshops, artists’ studios, self-sufficient farms, hobo squats, community centers, basement bike shops, speakeasies, and all varieties of communal living spaces. In over 300 images of fifty houses in twenty-five cities in the US, photographer Abby Banks finds the already weathered face of a seventeen-year-old runaway; the soft hands of a vinyl junkie (record collector); the mohawked show-goer; the dirty dishes in the sink; silk screened posters on the wall; and many other revealing glimpses of these anarchist interiors.