artist statement
This project is about really cherishing your high school and teenage years. I feel like people are quick to focus on how miserable and stressful high school is. But when we grow up, we realize that there were great moments. I decided to romanticize and portray an idealized version of high school life. I grew up watching movies such as Mean Girls and Jennifer’s Body which portrayed teenage cliques and locker room life. Because I lost half of my high school experience to quarantine, I've come to really cherish the time I have left as a teen. In order to create this idealized unrealistic effect I focused on dramatic lighting and staged poses.
These photos are of my best friends since the beginning of high school, a few friends from my art class, and girls I met in the crowded bathroom stalls. I tried to portray an idealized vision of strutting the halls, lounging with friends, and being rebellious. But, realistically a lot of high school is going from class to class, feeling drained, and not having a definite friend group. Through our media and society , this romanticized view has become the norm. As pre-teens watch these TV shows and movies they feel pressured to adapt. Pre-teens and teens grow up faster and emulate the idealized versions of themselves.
M E L I S S A : b r o o k L y n
Melissa was proudly born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She is an Asian American visual arts student at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts who decided to pick up photography. This future image-maker program was her first time using a camera. Melissa loved learning to capture the essence of youth, friendships, and high school life. She loves exploring forms of artistic expression, makeup, painting, ceramics, music, and especially photography.
This project was created in Future Imagemakers in the Department of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU in Spring 2022. To go to the 2022 Future Imagemakers Gallery, click here.