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EDITORIAL Rosa Olivares
There are many examples in traditional literature of characters who remain at a stage of life which is divorced from any responsibility. This attitude of negating maturity, the inability to accept the changes which time irrevocably imposes on our bodies, is known in psychology as the Peter Pan syndrome: our way of life, and our involvement in relationships with others, with that world which surrounds us, with ourselves. The figure of Peter Pan, a literary projection of its author (James Matthew Barrie, a man who in his private life or in his sexual relationships or friendships never accepted the reality of being an adult male), embodies the ideal of all those who want to live in Never Never Land, that magical place where the mermaids, Tinker Bell, the lost children and Captain Hook share a world of freedom and daydreaming with no timetables, no parents, no school, no work, with no more responsibility than playing, singing and enjoying themselves. Leaving that country means growing up, ceasing to be young, to become an adult, passing from child to parent, encumbered with responsibilities; changing and, in effect, accepting the game -sometimes a dangerous one- of living. Nobody wants to grow up. Nobody wants to abandon the idea of beauty and freedom which that state known as adolescence appears to be, and which comes between childhood, with its total dependence on adults, and maturity, excessively burdened with commitments and obligations. It is an imprecise age with a number of ambiguous characteristics which vary between cultures, countries and epochs. Between the age of 12 and 18 we register the short-lived existence of adolescence. Nevertheless, in western society, in the so-called developed countries, that period of time can be stretched to thirty, as the separation from the family, economic independence, and the acceptance of social responsibilities of all kinds (from total partner relationships to political and economic opinions and an attitude of intellectual independence) arrive increasingly later. In underdeveloped countries adolescence is characterised as a source of cheap labour; a basic product of the sex market; a new type of slavery which begins in infancy and makes the adolescence of a Philippine, Thai or Cuban girl very different from that of a young Spanish, German or English girl. Nevertheless, adolescence is a certain period of life, whether it is experienced in an atmosphere of social and economic opportunities or in backward societies. It is, above all, a stage full of dissatisfaction, frustration and danger. It is at this moment of our lives when wounds become indelible, complexes become practically insuperable, and the memory of all this grows with us preventing us almost always from recovering from a transitional stage which sometimes becomes an insurmountable barrier making personal development difficult, and the creation of one's own life different from others' and truly personal.
Like every stage of transformation, the changes -in this case physical, psychological and social- are in general painful. In the purely physical aspect, the pressure of a society in which the image of perfection and beauty approaches that of the asexual androgen, leaves its imprint upon the bodies, the flesh and the spirit of many of our adolescents of both sexes, who are forced to wear clothes designed for anaemic bodies only existing on paper, served up to us on the TV or film screen, and above all from the world of fashion. The adolescents of today, bulimic, anorexic in developed societies, and oppressed, exploited and prostituted in underdeveloped societies, each different in form, are victims of their own adolescence; from the increasingly abundant fashion victims, vigilantly attentive to brands, logos and the latest fashion, all the way to the victims of the increasingly sophisticated child pornography networks through Internet or international Mafia groups. This sorrowful attitude of adolescence, that sensation of vulnerability, along with the freshness of their skin, the innocence of their look, their peculiar form of musculature, of bodies not yet formed which indicate the features of a not yet fully defined sexuality, are some of their most attractive features as a social group. But that sensation of being only half formed, of being unfinished bodies and minds, wherein lies their irresistible attraction, is also the origin of all their ills. This is because nothing, no-one, not even costly medical processes, or eating, or doing exercise... nothing can prevent this process ending its natural cycle and transforming those skinny young girls into women with categorically sexual forms. Nothing can avoid those languid thighs becoming rounded bottoms; nothing can prevent boys' bodies from growing bodily hair and them becoming men, thus ceasing to be a sex object par excellence -the object of a sexual desire which is uncharacteristic of present society, some may believe, but which has been that way since ancient times. In fact, adolescence is this transformation and the damage it causes physically and mentally. And, of course, its analysis can neglect neither the aesthetisizing process nor the social and economic consequences of dealing with it, from the massive market of products for the young (drinks, fashion, cinema, music...) to that market of child and youth employment which produces at miserable prices in one continent what adolescents from other continents will pay for at exorbitant prices. This is two sides of one and the same coin. But those who think that this is a problem exclusive to our own times are deceiving themselves. Our society has exacerbated and publicised this, making it into a global, pubic fever. But this fact is eternal, as eternal as the desire for beauty and youth. From Alice Lidell's photographs of Lewis Carroll to those of Sally Mann's children, not a great deal has happened: both are accused of being pornographers. Both photographed children and adolescents they loved. Since the times of child jesters, medieval slaves, or the weddings of the thirteen years old children of the crowned heads of Europe, to buying sex today, not much has actually changed. The sale of the virginity of new prostitutes, children of 12 years of age and sometimes less, is something eternal which has moved from the brothels for noblemen to the streets of Moscow or Manila, and even to our own.
But behind that desire, that kind of generation-based envy, a painful reality hides: the incomprehension and loneliness of adolescents. Rebelling constantly against their families and the order which society has set down for them, adolescents find in fashion, films and advertising not only a model to follow but the justification of their own behaviour, taking on imported roles and dispensing with any further criticism. This stereotype of adolescent is what we see in the majority of western families, but there is also a type of young person who escapes these appreciations and constructs a critical view towards a conformist, out-dated environment, a society which is increasingly more uncritical and decadent. It is therefore not fair to talk of adolescents only as victims of consumerism and mass culture, particularly when their elders construct myths about social lunatics and compulsively consume anything that advertising offers them. Over the course of the history of photography, adolescence has been a favourite theme, covering all its possibilities. Above all, its beauty has stood out and, to contrast this, photo-documentaries have revealed its misery to the entire world. And if Larry Clark has painted young Americans practising their sexual rites, their drugs and their violence, in their most spectacular attire, Lewis Hine, through his photographic work, has helped to review the employment status of children in New York. Oppression and distraction, happiness and pain: everything has been reflected through the work of hundreds of artists who have concerned themselves, been obsessed, or have simply entertained themselves taking photographs of adolescents. In the following pages we can see how artists today see this fragment of life. The young people offer themselves to us insolent and happy, solitary, exploited, sad, confused, hopeful, melancholic, sick, different....young people from all points of the compass, as adolescence is similar everywhere, although it may look physically different. Perhaps the difference between the image which photography today gives us of youth and the image we received in past times is that today more emphasis is placed upon psychological aspects through more intimist and direct portraits in which, today, we no longer see adolescence as an enviable time but as a difficult period to be overcome.
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