In this unique series, the photographer Pascal Bastien captures a happy youth: a vision shaped during his many journeys within the European Union and around the world. As a globe-trotter in constant search of testimonies of everyday life, he pursues and revives the principles of humanist photography: capturing the simple joys of life, but also its difficulties and injustices, in intimate and public spaces. Here he introduces us to a youth in love with freedom: lovers on the Danube Delta, refugees on the shores of the Mediterranean, young girls enjoying themselves and the traditions of the Marquesas Islands or a happy couple in a swimming pool in Andalusia... A youth always in search of other places, of exchanges and encounters.
Pascal Bastien works alternatively as a press photographer and as an independent author. His press work is distributed by Divergence-images, he works on commission for Libération, Le Monde, The New York Times, l’Obs, Die Zeit, De Standaard, Courrier International... His artistic work is exhibited and published in the form of a photographic accounts, he tells the story of day-to-day life using a medium format camera equipped with black and white silver film.
This exhibition, hosted by the Delegation of the European Union to the Council of Europe and the European Union National Institutes for Culture – EUNIC Strasbourg, promotes the goals of the European Year of Youth. The European Commission has dedicated 2022 to young people, in an aim to engage, connect and empower them in a post-pandemic, more sustainable and open world. In the European Year of Youth, the EU is stepping up its cooperation with the Council of Europe to bring young people closer to Europe, democracy and participation.
