Astrid Piethan
Johnny
During adolescence, questions about self-perception, self-image and one\'s own identity play a major role. Especially in the course of puberty, adolescents deal with various options of identification and strategies of self-discovery and self-development. They adapt role models and go through processes of detachment and emancipation that still oscillate between testing and implementation. Thus, the self-image of adolescents still oscillates between self-discovery and self-dramatization, between being and appearing without being able or obliged to make conclusive statements. These developmental processes go through many sometimes very contradictory stages until adulthood. With my ongoing photographic work \"Johnny\" I portray the young and tender but in equal measure already determined beginnings of these processes using the example of that very Johnny, in which I accompany him in his movement between his protective home and the \"stage\" for his youthful transformation processes, the (public) outdoor space. In my immediate neighborhood in Cologne Ehrenfeld, more and more children and young people have been meeting in the passage of a commercial space since the beginning of the pandemic and taking the public space for themselves. They appropriate the area through small interventions with found building materials and act autonomously. I noticed 10-year-old Johnny, who can be found there every day and, together with other children, uses the architecture of the passage as a skate park. Johnny lives together with his mother and his four-year-old sister in the immediate vicinity of the passage. In dealing with the pandemic, the outdoor space gains in importance for him. His field of action has expanded with the occupation of public space and the new freedom of movement (more time and personal responsibility). He defines himself in this phase of life through the outside and feels a great urge for autonomy. At the same time, there is a special closeness and care that connects him with his single mother.
