What do you remember doing when you were 15? Were you the one who thought that keeping three Tamagotchis alive simultaneously was the epitome of time management? Or were you the girl who hemmed her school skirt using a stapler so that it sashayed just a few inches south of embarrassment?
The word 'fifteen' conjures up all sorts of hormone-induced memories. Too young to be leaders, too old to be followers, it was a time where we were caught in an angst filled limbo. Should we abandon our New Kids on the Block posters in favour of scantily clad Italian soccer stars? Was cutting off the crusts of our sandwiches still cool, or was it cooler not to eat at all? Was 15 too young to be giving up your V-plates, or were we practically geriatrics if we hadn't gotten rid of them by now, driving off into the sunset in your crush's dad's Volvo?
Ilana Panich-Linsman was still 15 a decade ago, and obviously remembers the time well (or rather, not-so-well through a smokey vodka haze). Her photographic series
Fifteen follows a group of teenage girls in Brooklyn as they initiate themselves. They crash parties in their mums' heels, ponder as how to divvy up pills, kiss their boys in diner booths, inhale then cough up cigarettes, and then are home in their pink polka-dot doona covers by 11pm. Oh, to be young again!
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ilanapl.com.