Amy Touchette is transfixed by teenagers’ hybrid nature. “Teenagers are raw adults; they are exposed to adult situations, but lack the experience and wisdom that maturity brings, and adult consequences abound,” says the New York-based photographer in the press release. In a new body of work called The Young Series, Touchette brings together street portraits of teenagers living in New York City, O’ahu, Hawaii and Tokyo, Japan. The images are a nod to their dual dispositions, but Touchette says she also “simply wanted to capture what is such a distinct and fleeting time in life–the teen years–regardless of where one lives.”

Touchette chose to look at teenagers in three island localities with strong and distinct personalities because she believed it would “create a more heightened and interesting visual experience,” adding, “although the world is globalized now, significant remnants of each island culture still exist.”

The Young Series explores connections between humanity, a thread that emerges as Touchette’s various projects featuring people within their social groups and communities build on each other.

From February 22-March 16, 2018, The Young Series will be on view in the San Luis Obispo Gallery at California Polytechnic State University. The work invites viewers to actively engage with the pictures, discovering differences and similarities in the between young people from different cultures, and geographic parts of the world.

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