In his photographs Zielony describes the public life of youths in high-congestion areas like the Knowle West district in Bristol, the prefabricated-concrete housing areas in Halle-Neustadt, or the Quartiers Nord in Marseille. He is interested less in the documentation of living conditions than in the depiction of the lounging and posing of youths in public spaces. He portrays urban spaces in which social life is played out between parking garages, supermarkets and empty lots. Zielony is fascinated by what he calls “this fully casual form of social interaction.” He depicts life in the border areas of urban reality, in socially sanctioned sites of exclusion which, far removed from all the utopias conceived by urban planners, have developed into a sort of autonomous city within the city. These investigations into urban subculture are mirrored in his book of photos “Behind the Block” (2004). Zielony orients himself in terms of the aesthetic of documentary photography and thereby draws in his series of color photos a forceful picture of a generation deemed to be “lost.” Likewise in the project “Big Sexyland” (2005), his theme is a certain social reality of youths. In a reportorial style, black-and-white photographs show young men in a porno cinema and an adjacent park. They are Germans, but also youths from Rumania, Bulgaria and Poland, who sell themselves for sex to earn money to buy drugs or simply in order to survive.

(Text: Gabriele Sand)

Biografie: