Valentin Goppel 2022 Highly Commended

Between the Years

When the lockdown came, I had just finished my last photo project. I was visiting my parents when the news first reported that the universities were closing. Thrilled at the news of an extended vacation, I wrote a note on the kitchen table. “Uni’s are closed, might stay a few more days.” I was so full of energy that I didn’t finish the sentence, the note ended with the words “may stay a fe-“. The joy didn’t last long. At some point I had looked through the Netflix watchlist and listened to all my favourite records, then I wished for university back. When I eventually got the task to photograph my generation in times of corona, I finally grasped the relevance of the subject and got a taste for the story in its entirety. Suddenly it felt like I had a special view on things, like maybe my perspective was even relevant.

All the young people in my environment were possible protagonists, all of them had a story to tell, and for all of them the pandemic was an exceptional situation. It was not difficult to explain to them what pictures I was looking for, we were all in the middle of it and knew how the other was feeling. I took photos of acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances. For the most part, however, they were the people I had been missing for months. I sometimes moved into their shared flats, photographed them smoking pot and having lunch with their parents.

In scenes both observed and imagined, I tried to find a way of capturing the weight of our disorientation. And somewhere In between, I started to under­stand that corona was merely a catalyst to what was already there. The ‘not having a clue where to go with yourself’, not yet knowing where to hold on when everything is shaking: That’s maybe part of the state between being a kid and being an adult anyway.