Rites de Passage

A century ago, youth implied a vast clear defined phase of transition from child to adult. According to this, youth ended with the entry into working life or marriage. Today it is not so easy to narrow this tranisitional period down. While the phase of youth used to be a relatively secure period of founding existence and family, it changed to a diffuse area of life, stretching more and more out into adult age. Parallel to the diversification of youth cultures, right now it grows up a generation that has been born after the introduction of the internet. Fashion has become very important for this age-group. For this body of work I focused on youth, being in public space. This public space is their platform and stage, where they practice behavior and persona. But what actually happens there, when they linger in groups? How can I catch the essential, the atmosphere and tension, between them? I wanted to investigate to what extend a subjectivley perception is conveyable with photography. My decision to pick out the moment of being among themselves as a moment of youth-reality is motivated by the fact that here it becomes visible in the particular habitus expressing in poses, gestures and clothing. I am interested in the seemingly action-less moments, where nothing dramatic happens. They touch each other, they kiss, they allocate, they disgress. I do not want to tell a precise story. Instead I took a tightrope walk, being in the stress-field of three poles: Some photos tend to idealize the youth, they almost become their Idols from the media. Other photos evoke a narrative reading, bringing filmstills in mind. And other photos have a documentative character, recalling a coverage.