Matt Smith

Matt Smith, aka Mattko, is an outsider artist working out of Bristol and the West Country. He began documenting British culture in the late 1980s and has not stopped since.

His personal brand of “on-the-road” diary documentary work was born out of opposition to mainstream media lies regarding travellers, free parties, rave culture, and peaceful protest.

When the government sought to outlaw the culture of resistance that evolved in the early 1990s, Matt was a founder member of Sunnyside, a sound system collective.

As pioneers of noisy protest, they turned demonstrations into celebrations, produced free parties with a purpose for over a decade, and engaged in non-violent direct action against environmental destruction.

The Mattko archive spans some 250,000 images. The work charts rave culture from its origins, through criminalisation and assimilation, to the internationally successful festival industry it is today.

His two books, Exist to Resist and Full On Non Stop All Over, are sought-after collectors’ items that have inspired films, exhibitions, books, and various imitators.

He is currently working to get a second edition of Exist to Resist into print and dreaming up ways to create community through immersive art environments that amuse, entertain, and inform radical social change.