Youth Culture - a new project

When traveling on the bus its likely you will overhear various conversations on a variety of subjects, this happened to me at the start of summer. Two old ladies were discussing their opinions on young people, and occasionally linking this back to their middle-aged children. They talked about how younger generation, my generation, “don’t do anything these days” and “they don’t know how to do anything”, the older women used examples of knitting, sewing, cooking and other tasks. This particularly offended me, their, what could be considered to be ignorant opinions were essentially calling my generation lazy. As a young person who attends university and can in fact knit, sew and cook, although I may still be learning to do these tasks, I took their statements personally. I had forgotten about the experience until a conversation during a lecture at university when youth culture was mentioned. This sparked my interest in why these two old ladies had these opinions and the way youth are seen in contemporary times.

To demonstrate that young people do in fact do 'things', I am beginning to make work surrounding the issues surrounding the generation gap and the opinions of the older generation (60 years old and older) on the younger generation (16 - 25 year olds). I will be making both still and moving image work based on this concept, both featuring myself and others.