Photographer Tony Davis grew up within the subcultures of 1970s Britain, moving between football terraces and Northern Soul all-nighters at venues such as Wigan Casino. By the 1990s, as electronic music and DIY party networks reshaped Britain’s nightlife, he turned his focus to the emerging rave movement — this time with a camera in hand.

Davis became a regular at the DiY collective’s nights at Nottingham’s Marcus Garvey Centre, a space that played a pivotal role in the Midlands free-party network during the early part of the decade. DiY’s blend of political independence, co-operative organising and open access drew people from across the region, and Davis photographed the scene from within.

His work also traces other key Midlands venues of the era, including The Kool Kat, Venus and The Eclipse in Coventry — one of the first licensed all-night clubs in the UK. Together, these photographs form a direct account of a culture built outside mainstream structures, shaped by young people creating their own spaces and ways of being together. Davis’s images stand as an important record of a movement that transformed British nightlife and continued the thread of grassroots creativity that marked his earlier experiences on the terraces and within the Northern Soul scene.