Tobias Zielony

For over ten years, Tobias Zielony has been portraying young people he encounters on urban peripheries and social margins in western welfare states. His motifs come from places where modern achievements are starting to crumble, and promises of community and solidarity have left only disenchantment. His portraits include young people in night-time Los Angeles, seeking corners in the city where they can be (The Cast, 2007), or descendants of the original inhabitants of Canada, in the reservations of Manitoba, whose cultural traditions have been destroyed, along with their future prospects (2009).

In front of Zielony’s camera, they all look as if they want to appear in a positive light, to construct a poised, dignified image of themselves – although they are in fact aware that the resulting images are misleading. In his project The Citizen, for the German pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Zielony has portrayed refugee activists in Hamburg and Berlin. He published the photographs in newspapers, magazines and blogs, together with texts by African writers from their countries of origin, such as Sudan, Uganda, and Nigeria. In his Lunch Talk he will present this project.