No noise. No rebellion. No staging. With WOLVES, Winter Vandenbrink turns his lens towards the quiet moments of a generation that is constantly together, yet often appears profoundly alone. His photographs portray teenagers on the streets, squares and stairways of Paris, Amsterdam, Milan and Venice – sleeping, waiting, observing or absorbed in their smartphones. Out of these seemingly incidental encounters emerges a compelling portrait of youth, belonging and togetherness.
Following VANDALS and TOBY, WOLVES is the third publication by the Dutch-born, Paris-based photographer to be released by IDEA. Unlike his fashion and commercial commissions, this body of work is entirely unscripted. Moving through groups rather than directing them, Vandenbrink observes gestures, glances and body language, capturing those fleeting moments between closeness and distance in which a sense of belonging quietly reveals itself.
“I did have to think about whether the subjects of the photos should see me, though. In the beginning I shot undetected from very far away, but that started to feel a bit dishonest. So I moved in closer and closer. Now I like to stand in the middle of the action, or at least in a spot where the young people can see me and approach me if they want.”
The book's conceptual framework is provided by Field Notes, an essay by Eliot Haworth. His observations of wolf behaviour remain deliberately ambiguous, inviting readers to interpret them as descriptions of both animals and adolescent social groups. “As a rule, they tend to wear large shaggy coats in the winter, which lighten up in the summer months. Even in the very coldest or hottest weather, they are happiest when mingling outside. Their hairstyles vary. Some wear it straight, or in tufts, or crests, or short and with an elastic springiness. Some hair is exceptionally long and runs down past the shoulders. It can be black or blonde, or brown or red or orange or silver. Sometimes it’s a fetching two-tone, with the tips tinted a darker colour.”
As a physical object, WOLVES goes far beyond the conventions of the photobook. Designed by Dutch graphic designer Linda van Deursen, it combines multiple paper stocks, untrimmed sewn-in sections and a book block mounted inside a folded poster. IDEA describes it as the publisher's most ambitious book production to date – so complex that one Italian printer initially declared it “impossibile.” The book was printed and bound by Wilco Art Books in the Netherlands.
WOLVES
Winter Vandenbrink
Design: Linda van Deursen
Text: Eliot Haworth
33 × 24 cm, 168 pages