Corona: How young people feel about the crisis – Photo series

Marla doesn’t even look at the camera. Her head was buried deep in the mattress. The 17-year-old had to cut her year abroad in New Zealand when the Corona virus spread around the world. When she returned to Germany, she was caught between two worlds, she does not belong to any class, and does not know what to do with herself.

She spent some time for a few months, then the new school year started, then the second shutdown came. This, she says, is more difficult. “Everything looks so bleak.” Now the girl spends a lot of time in bed, sleeps a lot, and hangs on the cell phone.

Quotes and photos of Marla taken from the “Youth in Lockdown” project. Hamburg photographer Rebecca Hoppe. From January to March, it photographed young men, many of them friends of their 17-year-old son Dillon. It all started with him. “I looked at him and he was lacking the light of life.” Hubei says, “It was like being faint.

She saw what the lockdown was doing to her son. The photographer wondered how other young people would do, who should actually be at a stage in life when they are young and “dance all life”. It is important for her to show the youth’s problems and give them a voice. Otherwise, no one will see them.

She meets Greta, who is upset that the teachers or parents have not tried to put themselves in the shoes of the youth. I meet Iba, 13, who says, “If I watch a movie today and people go to the supermarket, I guess why don’t they wear a mask?” I meet Nikan, who dreams of his 18th birthday on his big birthday: “I want to rent something and throw a big party. With all the friends, until we get together again. This encounter. People and connection. It’s a beautiful feeling. ”Or Bengt, 17, who set up a small fitness studio in the attic:“ It’s a little cold in there, but you have to make the most of that time, ”he says.

Hubei tells how powerful some guys are in spite of it all. It tells about a boy making a dumbbell from a broomstick and about a girl who started drawing again. “I admire those who found a way to deal with the crisis.”

Hubei says the crisis is causing problems for all the young people it has spoken to. »They lack social contact, spontaneous encounters. Some stare at the screen for hours every day. And behind every closed door was a person with fears and expectations of life, but had not been seen.