No two houses of the holy: Creating cultural heritage in <i>Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses</i>

Abstract

Using the Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses exhibition as a case study, this article offers one possible answer to the question: what is needed for popular music to become cultural heritage? It looks at how the exhibition&rsquo;s use of material culture and its relation to intangible culture provide opportunities for audience engagement and establish the exhibition as a site for the production of cultural heritage. Drawing upon work done in both heritage and popular music studies, I argue that the exhibition thesis, its design and the integration of participatory opportunities create a congregant space, one in which heritage&rsquo;s characteristic operation of establishing a relationship between present and past in order to facilitate inheritance is realized in a manner that offers a dynamic and variable image of membership.