Illustrious collaborated with artist Dawinder Bhansal to create a soundscape based on frank interviews with a variety of couples who fell in love in the 80’s, and are still together. The piece can be found, along with many other reminiscent artifacts on the WE FOUND LOVE IN THE 80’S website.

Dawinder Bhansal Comments – 
“The 1980s was a memorable decade for so many reasons.  It was colourful, eclectic, and sometimes strange and bizarre! It certainly produced some of the most spectacular art, music, film, and fashion, which continue to inspire younger generations today. Like anything in life, you can’t have the good without the bad. Forty years on and the 1980s has so much resonance and parallels to our contemporary moment, we had a Conservative government, unemployment was high, racism was rife and there was a deadly new virus spreading across the globe.

And yet, in amongst all of this, we still had LOVE. People were still falling in love, although this was easier if you fitted the norms of society. For those who didn’t, falling in love often had to be in secret, especially those in gay or interracial/mixed-faith relationships.

After everything we’ve all been through over the past few months of lockdown, now seems like a perfect time to launch a positive project about love and what unites us.

This project is about celebrating and discovering unheard stories about falling in love in the 1980s. While going on this journey with the couples, we’ll also be documenting important British social history.”