This morning the future of the UK’s young people was decided by the generation above us. We’re set to leave the EU, despite an overwhelming majority of young people voting to Remain, while the Leave vote seems to have been made by people who won’t face the consequences of the referendum for longer than two decades. In this time, it’s easy to feel like we’re powerless, as young people. Feeling like a kid whose parents say ‘let the adults discuss this’. The seriousness of the result is already being felt, and you can read our thoughts on the result here, but below we wanted to just look at great photos that celebrate a small selection of the beauty and diversity of our EU fam.
Local Alba Yruela trekked around Barcelona’s skate spots earlier this year in a series that shows the positivity, freedom and camaraderie of the skate community – whether native or international to the city.
Photographer Sophie Stafford photographed teens uniting together through techno in the streets of Paris. She told us: “The Techno Parade originally began as a protest movement – a backlash against the government’s repression of electronic music in the early 90s,” Stafford explains. “It was only in 1998 that the Technopol, an organisation created in support of electronic music, finally persuaded the authorities to recognise it as a musical culture, and staged the very first parade in the heart of the capital. Today, the slogan of the event is ‘freedom, diversity, rhythmicity’; something that is felt in the beat of the parade as it flows relentlessly through the city streets all the way from Place de la Nation to Place de la Bastille.”
An exploration into Lisbon’s DJs and the music scene that surrounds them, touted as a the new grime. Despite being dubbed as “western Europe’s poorest country” where over 400,000 people had left the country since its 2007 crash, the determination of names like DJ Firmeza of Piquenos DJs Do Guetto and Pedro Gomes should inspire even the most disenchanted of young people.
Raves, parties, heartbreak, tears, hangovers, hickeys, pimples and tattoos are what make up the bulk of late photographer Jouko Lehtola’s photos of Finnish youth. For over two decades he documented Helsinki, explaining, “I try to capture innocence and rage. Anyone who has been a teenager knows it ain’t fun. It’s not a very nice situation.”
“People in Berlin have their own world and really enjoy it in they own way. They don’t really care about what other people think and that inspires me – I wanted to photograph those beautiful moments,” said New York photographer Fumi Nagasaka after spending her 2014 summer in the country’s capital. A black and white series shows young people smoking and hanging out, and just generally making us wish we were doing the same thing.
 and Firmeza)
