“Imagine” – A Worldwide Photography Project with Young People

“Imagine” began with a very catchy idea by Berlin journalist Philipp Abresch: at various points in various countries, children should record their lives with a camera. Abresch had already conducted a similar project in Kosovo, and he knew how fascinating the way young people view a seemingly familiar situation can be. 

His idea aroused considerable interest at the GTZ Office in Berlin, and GTZ staff in the priority area “youth” were quick to recognise its potential. The 26-year-old political science student became a full-fledged GTZ partner in cooperation. 

For GTZ, the “Imagine” co-project became highly visible both within the organisation and outside of it. GTZ staff from 40 countries joined in with great enthusiasm. In the industrialised countries, such as the USA and Germany, the “Imagine” team worked together with schools, the media and private individuals. This wide-ranging network was what ultimately turned the vision of GTZ and Philipp Abresch into reality. 

The photography project aroused the interest of a total of 500 young people in 45 countries. They were between 10 and 16 years of age and came from every possible social urban or rural background. Many of the young participants had never held a camera in their hands before. The GTZ employees on site organised a number of photo workshops, so that the use of the camera could be practised and the project’s aims and purposes discussed. Thus the young photographers learned a great deal about the countries involved in the project and about the various cultures from which the other young people came. 

April 30, 2002, was the big day. Everywhere in the world young people pressed a button on their cameras and released the shutter. They visited their parents in banana plantations and rice fields. They snapped pictures of their friends in their local high school or in the bare surroundings of the village school – brushing teeth in Kabul, riding sleighs in Greenland, in the floods in Russia. That is how 12,000 photographs came to be taken on April 30, 2002 – a snapshot of the world from the viewpoint of the young. 

At the close of the international photography day, the pictures were developed on site. The 500 participants then selected three photos that they wanted to show to other people all over the world and sent them to the GTZ Office in Berlin. Each of the 1500 final pictures is accompanied by an explanatory text. Formal interviews were held with 80 of the young photographers. 

The “Imagine” exhibition first opened on August 23, 2002, at GTZ Haus in Berlin in the presence of Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, the German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, and under the patronage of Yoko Ono. 

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