Teenagers in Their Bedrooms in the 1990s

“Our bedrooms tell stories about us. They become the repository for memories, desire and self-image”

– American photographer Adrienne Salinger

 

When Adrienne Salinger first published her portraits of teenagers in their bedrooms in the 1990s, the American photographer wanted In My Room: Teenagers in Their Bedrooms to be a collection primarily about art. But her pictures of teens in the late 1980s and early 1990s are now slices of visual history.

Adrienne met the teenagers in malls, restaurants and through friends. “I told them not to clean their rooms, not to prepare in any way and no parents allowed.”

The new edition of Salinger’s book is out now.

 

“I chose teenagers because they’re on the edge of rapid change. It’s almost the last moment they’ll be living with their parents, in rooms that contain all of their possessions. The past is squeezed together on the same shelf as the future.”

– Adrienne Salinger

 

Upon its release in 1995, Adrienne Salinger’s book In My Room nearly 24,000 copies in its first few years. She hears from current teenagers often; many send her pictures of their bedrooms today.

She tells Claire Marie Healy:

“When you’re a teenager, you’re trying on identities continually. But you change so quickly that the things you have are all contradictions of themselves. Later, when we’re adults, we spend a lot of time trying to carve a consistent, coherent identity. We somehow get the impression that being an adult means everything lines up, right? But really, the only thing that makes us interesting at all is the way that doesn’t happen. Adults hide a lot of shit in the closet. But a teenager only has that 12 by 12 feet. Everything has to fit in there: the past and the future. Everybody’s got their stuffed animals, even when I was photographing teens smoking weed and talking about drugs and sex.”