Youth in the Country - International photo project
"Youth in the Country" is an international photo project involving photography students from eight European countries working together. Photography schools from Bulgaria, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Austria, Poland, Romania and Hungary are forming a network to originate the year-long project.
The theme is based on a range of current issues that are cross-border as well as playing an important role in each individual country. Firstly, there is the difference between city and country life with different life styles and opportunities for development. Secondly, there's the interface between young and old people, where the desires of young people are often pitted against the experience of older people. There is also the conflict between maintaining the status quo and change that can be perceived in the evergreen potential for conflict between local traditions and global innovations.
The advance of electronic media has created a global media, entertainment and consumer culture which highlights cultural characteristics on the one hand, while leveling out differences on the other. Young people are being confronted with a media reality where the dramatizations being presented are frequently in stark contrast with their own environment. In parallel with this development, youth subcultures are being created where magazines, music and Internet forums are forging links across borders.
The present is clearly also demonstrating the flip sides of this development. On the one side, whole swathes of country are desolate because they don't offer young people any opportunities for the future, while the cities attract migrants from the country and increasingly stark contrasts are created. "Youth in the Country" wants to document, research and comment on these developments, their effects and contrasts without casting them in stone. Exchanges between the countries and cultures involved form a special focus of this initiative. The aim is to focus perspectives on what we have and heighten awareness for others.
Project Date: October 26. / 27. 2007
Project venue: neunplus. Fotografengemeinschaft, Borsigstr. 9, 10115 Berlin.
Project partners picturetank, Paris (France), Ostkreuzschule, Berlin (Germany), photodebut, London (United Kingdom), Kunstuniversität, Linz (Austria), New Bulgarian University, Sofia (Bulgaria), neunplus, photographers society, Berlin (Germany), University of Kaposvár, Kaposvár (Hungary), Warszawska Szkola Fotografii (Poland), Universitatea Nationala (Romania)
