Legendary music photographer Janette Beckman was there at the birth of the subcultures that changed our world, capturing both the early days of punk in the UK and hip hop in the US. Her first shoot was Siouxsie and the Banshees, and working for The Face and Melody Maker she shot the Sex Pistols, Run DMC, Blondie and more, later on lensing M.I.A., Missy Elliott and Thurston Moore, LA gangs and Harlem dirt bikers.
As part of the year-long celebrations of 40 years of punk, an exhibition of Beckman's images of the explosive emergence of the UK punk scene opens tonight at Fiorentini + Baker in East London. Ahead of the opening, i-D caught up with Janette to find out what punk meant to her, to the world, and what it can mean to Brits waking up today to a post-Brexit reality.