Photography: Monica Nouwens Video Registration: Frank Ortmanns (VEX) Curator, Creative and executive video and exhibition production: Frank Ortmanns The installation was curated and produced together with Stichting Paradox, Edam, NL Look At Me (...) is the expressive, poetic portrait of a group of young people living in the margin of urban consumer culture. In cinematographic and suggestive images shot mostly at night, Monica Nouwens follows them at parties, during performances - solitary or loving each other. Nouwens’ images are not records of specific moments in time, she rather is the chronicler of an attitude, of a romantic rejection of mainstream social life. Look At Me (...) embodies the hopes, fears and nightmares of a generation that does not seem to be interested in fulfilling a social role that is part of society as we know it, but which tries to shape more personal, smaller scale alternatives. For more than fifteen years, Monica Nouwens has been portraying urban communities in America: from idealistic utopians, neo-hippy communities and anarchistic movements such as ‘Food Not Bombs’ to disillusioned, drug-addicted commandos returning from the war in Iraq. Nouwens is fascinated by the diversity of social manifestations in the city. Over the years she changed from being an outside observer into an involved insider. Ultimately this has formed the basis for her more independent work Look At Me (...). In this body of work her personal experiences with Los Angeles and its subcultures meet. Her commitment to the DIY subculture of youth, against the backdrop of a society facing a financial and moral crisis, is the main focus of the work.

photography museum Amsterdam ( foam.org)