Y O U N G S K I N S
by Anne Worthington
Not all borders are physical, not all of them are signposted. I often take photographs of people who are behind invisible borders, who are at the brinkof something. These photographs are part of a documentary that started in 2002 about young people at the brink of adult life.
The portraits and stories take place after childhood when the wider world is creeping in, and they experience it together, sticking close to friends and family where they can, because young skins are raw and vulnerable, and they are still finding their way.
These photographs show some of their lives framed in the landscape of the city in which they collide with the adult world, sometimes falling all the way into it.
This is a time of life where we like to believe anything is possible, that we have not embarked on life yet. I believe we can see something else in the photographs. We see the influences that already shape these young people: their loyalties, defences, hurt and disappointments, the personalities they have taken on, staged and heightened for the camera. There’s something palpable about leaving childhood behind and staring down into the future.
About The Artist
Anne Worthington is a documentary photographer and writer who taught herself photography as a way of showing what she saw around her. Featured in the British Culture Archive and Café Royal Books, for over twenty years, she has produced a body of work that shows the effects of the social and economic changes that had begun in the 1980’s. Turning to writing as a way of continuing this work, her first novel, The Unheard, won the Michael Schmidt Prize.
