Popular culture, politics, power, gender and race: 50 years on

St George's Cross, Union Jack and Two Asians, 2010. From the series You Get Me? by Mahtab Hussain, who uses his work to try to move beyond negative portrayals of Muslim communities Photograph: Mahtab Hussain/School of History and Cultures/University of Birmingham

God is a Feminist by Sarah Maple. Her work shows that the preoccupation 50 years ago of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies about the way women were portrayed in the media is still a major issue today Photograph: Sarah Maple/School of History and Cultures/University of Birmingham

A street scene from Nick Waplington’s Living Room series, 1991 Photograph: Nick Waplington/School of History and Cultures/University of Birmingham

Lollypop Lollypop by Sarah Maple, 2011 Photograph: Sarah Maple/School of History and Cultures/University of Birmingham

News in Briefs by Sarah Taylor Silverwood, 2014, is based on an archive of newspapers built up over the past 12 months. It is effectively a map of what cultural studies should be looking at today Photograph: Sarah Taylor/School of History and Cultures/University of Birmingham

This 1968 photo, by Janet Mendelsohn, a former student at the centre, was a visualisation of the interests of cultural studies – gender, race, immigration, the media and class Photograph: Janet Mendelsohn/School of History and Cultures/University of Birmingham

Part of Trevor Appleson's 2014 work Triptych/Ashley Photograph: Trevor Appleson/School of History and Cultures/University of Birmingham

This photograph was taken in 1991 by Nick Waplington and is part of his Living Room series Photograph: Nick Waplington/School of History and Cultures/University of Birmingham

The Leviathan series by David Batchelor, 1980. Now a renowned artist who works with colour, Batchelor was a student of cultural studies at Birmingham in the late 1970s. This work reflected a general disillusionment on the left following the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 Photograph: David Batchelor/School of History and Cultures/University of Birmingham