Be Good

Be Good is a work about underage married Roma teenagers in Romania, their traditions and rituals of the wedding(night), the importance of virginity and the burden of proof. It shows portraits of married couples with a focus on appearing as individuals and teenagers that grew up in this tradition, along with symbolic and metaphoric still lives of flowers and interiors like their marital bedrooms. Their society isn’t used to the idea of individuality in a modern sense, it simply doesn’t exist and so doesn’t the concept of youth: Either you're a kid or an adult. It’s easy to understand that, when you think about a 12 year old girl getting ready for her wedding and at the same time knowing that her virginity is the holy key to a respected marriage. Shortly after marriage the girls get pregnant and become mothers, boys become fathers. In the end it’s a work about youth, although from our western point of view it can be read as a work about the absence of youth, which leaves us with the question about happiness. Are those teenagers less happy, because they’re “missing out” on something so essential to us? The whole body of work includes an installation of 21 images, a book and a video.