Underway – Travels and discoveries
The urge to discover new things is common to children and young people. Curiosity, adventurousness and the desire for freedom encourage them to set out on journeys both short or long. This topic can be found throughout the works submitted to the German Youth Photo Prize since its inception, which testifies to its great importance.
Children and young people undertake their travels in different ways. Curiosity drives children to leave their familiar home situation and explore their close surroundings. Travelling helps young people to build their independence. By leaving their home grounds they discover new worlds of experience outside of their familiar environment, which they then record in photographs. Faraway destinations begin to play a role in the 1960s. In the following decades young people experience an increase in their mobility thanks to the expanded travel infrastructure. They document the trip itself, the people accompanying them and the country they travel in. Satisfying their desire to travel is not the only reason young people set out on the journeys. Many of the works submitted to the German Youth Photo Prize reveal a critical view of the places they travel to. By journeying to foreign countries they become sensitive to opposing realities: they observe and document different norms and forms of living as well as the unequal distribution of wealth.
