The Surf City exhibition returned us to the beaches of the 1950s, 60s and 70s and showed how a scruffy bunch of kids on surfboards, hungry for social change, left an indelible mark on Sydney. Boardriders, shapers, writers, cultural stirrers and everyday waxheads with attitude and sun-tanned bodies shook up the conservative city and created a new culture of freedom and hedonism. Surfboards evolved from toothpicks to malibus and, eventually, to the revolutionary shortboards. Along the way, surfing merged seamlessly into mainstream Australian life.

THE SURF CITY EXHIBITION WAS ON
24 SEPTEMBER 2011 – 18 MARCH 2012
AT THE MUSEUM OF SYDNEY