Portrait of Early Generation Z

Ongoing project. 2020 - … Members of the early Generation Z were born between 1995 and 2001. I myself was born in 1998 in Vilnius, Lithuania and the creation of this project was inspired by my own reflections on time. Raising my own existential questions — what have I achieved being 22 years old? what else should I achieve in the future? why am I who I am? — I try to find answers through looking at peers. The young people who I chose to involve in the project are Lithuanian members of my generation and I notice that our lives are related and intertwined in numerous ways. We subconsciously feel a sense of commonality as we were raised with digital technologies and now almost each of us have a virtual version of our personalities expressed on various social media platforms. We can be called the Generation of Freedom as we were raised by parents who fought for the independence of Lithuania. Each person in this project was photographed in their own chosen location, which is supposed to reveal what contributed to the formation of their personality. When asked where they would like to be captured, many of them chose either nature, in which they feel peace, or home, where they grew up and feel safe. Basically, our generation could be considered dual - modern, technology-dependent, but also romantic, appreciating tradition and nature, as well as showing an interest in the past. This duality takes place because our generation lives in a semi-real and semi-virtual reality. It is particularly easy to confuse the two realities - such a life is strange and unstable - so the questions that I address in this project provide an insight into the foundations of the actual reality and the identity of our generation.