What do the 1960s mean to you? An exciting period of your youth when you listened to The Beatles and The Who while clad in lurid-coloured prints and sprawled on a beanbag next to your lava lamp? Or does it bring to mind Austin Powers with his ridiculous velvet suit and thick-rimmed glasses? Although the popular culture of this era may be the first thing that springs to mind, the 1960s were of course a period of great cultural and political change after the bleak post-war 1950s. The youth of the 1960s were beginning to find their own identities with the help of daring new fashions, rock and roll and experimentation - to a background of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis and JFK's assassination.

It is no surprise that the psychedelic art, fashion and décor that emerged during the 1960s are some of the most vivid and visually-intense of the twentieth century. Artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichenstein still exert a powerful influence today, and the upcoming exhibition at the Liverpool Tate seeks to explore this. Summer of love: art of the psychedelic era begins in May and runs through to September 2005. With work by famous and lesser known artists, and with special emphasis on environments, film, video and multimedia the overall experience should appeal to all ages. Put a bit of psychedelia in your life!