This zine shines a light on the shadows of Brighton’s teenagers

In an age of hyper-online spaces, teenagers are often framed as a generation adrift, their subcultures said to have flattened beyond recognition by social media. Brighteens, the zine documenting youth in Brighton, instead shows how youth culture has reshaped itself. For two summers, photographers Chus and Greg (AKA Chus Antón and Grégory Clavijo) visited the seaside town, documenting teenagers in the thick of it.

Unlike their previous projects – such as Peas and Quaranteeen, which often focused on subjects in major cities such as Paris and London – the pair were drawn to a smaller, more suburban setting. “We’ve always loved Brighton. It’s a city full of art, culture and music, where we can still feel those ‘urban tribes’ vibes. It’s a place with a real sense of freedom where people don’t really care about what others might think of them, how they dress or how they look,” they explain.

At the heart of Brighteens are best friends Elkka and Jay. “We chose these teens because they reminded us of our own coming of age... and we saw such a strong reflection of ourselves in them,” the photographers share. This reflection of their own teenage experiences resonates throughout the project, mirrored in the teens’ reappropriation of cultural references and symbols from past decades. “It’s as if they would blend all these influences from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, making them entirely their own – very contemporary, very 2025 at the same time.”

The aesthetics of punk, metal, and goth are a core motif of Brighteens. The zine’s design, led by Emily Schofield, purposefully emulates the DIY ethos of punk publications. The shots are moody, framed by greying skies and backdrops of weathered stone walls. Inside the pages are young faces are scattered in piercings, their hair often jet black or dyed, eyeliner is thick and heavy, with layered chains and wired earphones pooling around necks. It’s a darkness that Chus and Greg feel is offset by their lightness. “This group of teens is quite goth/punk/emo, but at the same time, their personality and presence are bright and full of light,” they explain, a duality that also inspired the zine’s title.

This closeness to the subjects means Brighteens doesn’t feel like a project captured from the outside. Shots of friends running through the winding Lanes, or leaning against railings, relay the sense that the photographers were part of the group. It’s a trust the duo built carefully, allowing the project to remain free of voyeuristic perspective. “We just let them be who they are and make them forget that we're even taking pictures,” they explain.

After a successful summer of documenting Brighton’s youth culture, they returned to the city the following year, revisiting Elkka and Jay to continue the story. “We were also really interested in documenting them not at a specific moment in time but in a way that would show the passing of time, the changes, the whole ‘work in progress’ period that's inherent to being a teenager,” they explain. That sense of ongoing adolescence is mirrored in the photos themselves: friends dart along the shorefront, loiter on pavements, and lean into one another with the kind of closeness that feels uniquely comforting at 15 or 16.

Brighteens is not entirely a nostalgic project. The pair were keen to show how adolescence today is thriving, especially in a new ultra-digital world. “These teens show that a sense of belonging exists as much online as offline,” the photographers explain. “Nowadays, many teenagers share the same interests and tastes on the internet before meeting in real life, which is something we found very interesting to document…We realised urban tribes still exist, it's just that the internet and social media have relocated and expanded them: part online, part physical, one can belong to different groups, not just one, and geography is no longer a boundary for urban tribes to spread out.”

That openness is central to the project. “These teens are so open about societal questions such as gender, sexuality, and inclusivity. We grew up in small cities where that wasn’t the case – many of these topics were quite taboo,” they note. “Everything was also much more compartmentalised when we were teenagers… This group of teenagers, though, play and have fun with all these influences. They switch styles according to their mood and how they feel. Nowadays, teenagers can float between groups. They might dress quite goth but still love listening to Tyler, the Creator.”

Despite all the talk about generational divides, what stands out most in Brighteens is its optimism. “When we were doing Brighteens, we never felt a generation gap, quite the opposite,” they say. “Their open-mindedness, understanding of the world we live in, and their inclusivity and openness regarding sexuality, gender, and cultural differences are so inspiring to us. We should give teenagers more voice; it would surely make the world a better place.”

Brighteens is available to buy here now.