This interview by Sophie predates Margaret joining Document Scotland
Document Scotland is an admirer of Margaret Mitchell’s work, having worked alongside her and featured past projects.
Margaret’s most recent body of work explores community, young people and grassroots support. Her series The Youth House was made in Glasgow in 2019, at a time when a local organisation The Children’s Wood was establishing an indoor base for disadvantaged young people. This came after some trouble on the organisation’s community land, when they chose to listen to the needs of the teenagers rather than judge them. Margaret’s images concentrate on this pivotal moment, when The Youth House was starting out, when the young people were just beginning to come to this new space, to stay, and return.
In a society where it seems that some children have all the opportunities whilst others have none, let these young people grow, let them flourish.
Sophie spoke with Margaret earlier this month.
DS: I first saw The Youth House on Instagram. Bright colourful rooms with young people front and centre. Your work has always explored family, young people and individuals with such care and dignity and this project is no different.
How did you come to start this project, what drew your attention to the place?
MM: I started this project because it is something that is happening close to where I live in Glasgow and I felt connected to what the organisation is doing. The Children’s Wood is local to me and I followed and supported them over the years as they campaigned to preserve open land for community space, groups and outdoor education. Once they had done this, the organisation didn’t stop at that success but also initiated a youth-based programme called the G20 Youth Festival. This relates to the G20 postcode where The Children’s Wood is situated, a large locality that has much disparity in terms of health, employment, education, crime and housing.
Following some antisocial behaviour on the community land, the organisation decided to determine why this was. Instead of judging the teens, the youth workers asked the young people what they wanted, what they needed. As a local resident, I admired the goals and dedication behind this grassroots venture. I came in to document the young people at a time in 2019 when the organisation had just started an indoor base – The Youth House – in addition to meeting outdoors. I wanted to document this specific time, a new beginning, when something was taking shape. The photographs show some of the young people in the early days of the base opening up to the wider youth community.
DS: Why are the young people at this youth club so interesting to you, and how did you connect with them, there’s trust between you and them – how did you build this?
MM: I am first and foremost interested in the young people and the state of being a teenager. This has been a theme throughout my work, children and young people, their lives, their sense of selves. I’ve also considered issues of inequality in some past work, and this series combines both observation and reflection of these teenagers in their environment and circumstances. There is great inequality over very short physical distances in Glasgow: the G20 postcode has areas of affluence close to areas that score in the top 5% as the most disadvantaged on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. The young people in The Youth House live in such an area where their life choices shrink remarkably through these multiple disadvantages. This initial series was made fairly quickly over a few weekly visits, but I continued going afterwards, and did some volunteering with two young people. I like to build and maintain relationships in work like this, where I might want to explore further. So with the young people, it was about offering more than just a quick visit, but being someone who returns, who is reliable in their eyes.
DS: There is a deep sense of connection here. We see a relationship between you and the sitter – what’s the process of engagement for the portraits?
MM: Most of this series was done at the start of building my connection with them at the end of 2019. I also volunteered with two sisters during the day, accompanied by their youth worker which resulted in me knowing them better than others. Nine months on, some of these teens know me well, chat as I pass on the street about what they are doing, shout hello as I walk through the estate. This might sound a small thing, but it is not – gaining trust is super important in my work.
In my work, it is about a connection I make, even quickly, with the person I am photographing. I am doing environmental portraits here, within spaces that are important to these teenagers; it is their place. And it is an evolving space, a base that is getting painted and changed and used differently all the time. My practice is very much about observing, of being attentive to what is around me. That’s how I try to understand those I photograph, by watching how they move, sit, be. People sometimes assume I “direct” my photographs. But I’m mostly observing, responding to what’s there. Image-making is a decision process, of how to actually make a photograph of this particular person or place. But for me, that comes from observation.
Although I mostly still work on film for personal projects, this work was shot on digital as it was a Leica Loanpool award. This meant I showed the young people the photos right after doing them, on the preview screen. I also returned with prints for them.
Lockdown put a pause to meeting the larger groups but that will hopefully change as time goes on. I am already seeing a few of them weekly again in the outdoors, sometimes just catching up and seeing how they all are. Sometimes I do photos, a lot of the time I am just walking around, looking, developing my project in my mind.
DS: What are the stories of these young people’s lives – how have they come to attend a place like this – and why is it beneficial to them.
MM: Some of the young people came to the base through their contact with youth workers, either through outreach or following the initial problems in The Children’s Wood. Others are from the general community and came through their friends, so now there is a mix of children, teens and young adults from ages 10 to 25. Some individuals have greater support requirements, so the team concentrate on addressing specific needs. Sometimes this is done in consultation with schools, for example, but it involves the young people in that process.
The young people’s backgrounds are varied but all live in the G20 postcode, most within areas of high disadvantage. The youth workers offer diversionary activities, ones that will let them flourish in their interests or introduce new interests to them. This has included aspects such the older teens running outdoor play sessions for local children, starting up a ‘Food Pantry’ after a successful community food delivery service during lockdown, establishing an allotment, training in various sports, help with college applications and apprenticeships. It offers potential for them to think of doing something different. Basically, it gives encouragement and support and offers opportunities – hope – where before there was none. Importantly, the G20 Youth Festival needs ongoing funding to do this vital work without which many young people in this area would be left to flounder.
DS: What are you trying to show with this work – why did you feel it had to be made?
MM: My main interest as a photographer is in people, in the human condition. Within that I often photograph childhood into adulthood and the experience of being a young person within a certain set of circumstances. For me, these portraits reflect on an aspect of the individual but there is the larger social question that surrounds them. Seen together as a set of images, another story emerges: the overview of a time and a place and the representation of lives lived in an unequal society. It’s also showing the power of a grassroots community organisation that offers care and support to young people.
Teenagers from all backgrounds are often unfairly judged but it is even stronger with those from disadvantaged backgrounds, where the individual instead of the system is blamed. I hope that by bringing awareness to the disadvantage right under our noses, these teens can be valued as people whose life choices should have been much better but are not because of structural inequality. The G20 Youth Festival is trying to address that with youth workers, school liaisons, volunteers etc. My ongoing work and connection with them is just another mechanism feeding into that.
As photographers, our subject matter and the stories contained therein drive our work. The faces looking out at us in these portraits perhaps ask us some questions about how well we as a society are measuring up in offering fair and equal opportunity to all.
DS: What are your plans for the future?
MM: I like the idea of my photos being part of something circular, shown at the base, at the source, as well as traditional exhibiting. My connection with some of these young people continues, which means I have photographed them as part of other wider work, not only through the circumstances of this place.
Thank you Margaret for taking time to talk to us about The Youth House – we really look forward to seeing how the project progresses.
To see more of this project go to Margaret’s website at www.margaretmitchell.co.uk/the-youth-house
Follow Margaret on Instagram