In 1986, the Factory and Peter Saville organized the Tenth Summer Festival in Manchester, in honor of the year 1976, the birth date of English punk. Adapted from a lecture given by Lili Reynaud Dewar at CAPC musée d’art contemporain in Bordeaux on May 21, 2008, this article discusses the festival and offers a retrospective look at ten years of political, artistic, and social history in northern England, from punk to new wave via Margaret Thatcher and the battle of Orgreave.

Dewar, born in 1976, is an artist and critic who lives and works in Bordeaux. She teaches at the École des beaux-arts there and is represented by the Mary Mary Gallery in Glasgow.