And we do what we do ’cause we don’t understand the consequences
\nOf every step we take is wrong, how could we ever see the mess?
\nAnd it’s not just you and me, the whole youth is depressed<\/p>\n
Shake 070<\/em><\/p>\n In 2019, I had an individual exhibition in Terrasa entitled The Glorious Tragedy of Youth<\/em>. I stole the title of the exhibition from an exhibition in Barcelona in 2008 which I never saw. The little I know about that exhibition is that it was sponsored by a skateboard clothing brand, and on the flyer the brand logo was larger than the artist\u2019s name. What seemed interesting to me was that, more than the title of an exhibition, it was an advertising slogan. Youth is an asset, youth is a romantic ideal, youth is a niche market. You have to exploit it.<\/p>\n In my exhibition, everything revolved around the same idea, the paradox of youth and its representation. In media discourse, youth is presented as the most desirable condition of being. The qualities attributed to this concept are always understood as purely positive and are reproduced everywhere. These qualities are embodied and recreated in the media by subjects of all ages with the aim of producing desirability. The attributes of youth are synonyms for what is fresh, joyous, healthy, productive and so many other good things. At times, youth appears as just a simulacrum disconnected from the biological condition of the body. Cosmetic surgery or makeup are just some of the techniques used, and also reproducing attitudes or using a certain slang. On the other hand, there are those who enjoy the \u201cprivilege\u201d of being biologically young (although who knows what its limit is). Unfortunately, young people live a reality that is less attractive than the avatars that represent them, faced with labor precariousness, a lack of opportunities and, in the case of minors, of not even being granted all their rights. From this point of view, there are two very different youths, one which is only a spectacular representation and another, more precarious one defined by the age of the body. These different visions are antagonistic. There is a disconnect between the subject represented and the imaginary subject with which it is associated. The exhibition was based around a centerpiece consisting of a light box in which the following sentence could be read: “Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst”. A snippet of the song Forever Young<\/em>, from the German New Wave band Alphaville, was played. The quote shows the ambivalence between ideal and material reality, between hope and expectation, between what they tell you that you should be and how you actually see things. Between these two positions there is a tension that exceeds and shapes us.<\/p>\n Image of the work Alphaville Song<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n Image of the work Alphaville Song<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n Before the exhibition, we held some workshops with a group of teenagers interested in photography. We made a small photo-novel\u00a0<\/em>fanzine on the theme of adultism[1]<\/sup><\/a>Adultism is \u201cthe power that adults have over children.\u201d More specifically, adultism is defined as \u201cprejudice and systematic discrimination against young people.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/a-desk.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/joan_palle_hoping-for-the-best-2.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/a-desk.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/joan_palle_but_expecting_the_worst-3.jpg\")