Evan Baden

Teen culture, especially American teen culture, is filled with “viewers.” Young people are constantly inundated by imagery of iconic figures, elevated to an almost religious level. The constant bombardment of this imagery has an effect on teen culture. Teens begin to shape their behavior based on what they are seeing.

To explore this idea, I am using some of the most iconic images, figures, and tropes of pop culture as a starting point. I enlist the help of high school aged people and together we create our own image. The image that we create together directly communicates with the images in pop culture that teens are so used to seeing.

By participating in the making of my images, the models in my images are–if only for a moment–transformed into the very thing they admire and aspire to be; the very thing they have spent so much time looking at. Now, they too will be looked at. They perform for some unknown, imagined viewer who exists in the near future. There is no concern for who that viewer is–whether they are male or female, young or old– only that they exist, and that they will be looking.