Born in New York, photographer Lauren Lepore recently set off from her home city for a tour of the US, travelling the country and documenting youth culture to get a real insight into America’s diverse cultures and characters. Titled The Kids Are Aight, the resulting images offer a deep-dive into different facets of the country’s populations. At a time of socio-political uncertainty and downright abuse of power, Lepore’s photographs scratch at the surface to reveal different personalities from one state to the next; capturing everything from out-of-control gigs to late-night party shutdowns.

Picked up by independent UK publishers Loose London, this body of work is set to be displayed at a special exhibition taking place at South London’s Take Courage Gallery across 15th-16th November. Prior to the exhibition opening, here Lepore talks us through five images from the collection, giving us the inside scoop as to who, why, where and wtf is going on in each picture.

1.

“Los Angeles, California. I was on my way to the liqueur store too early in the morning on a hot LA day. In the parking lot I spotted this guy with his fresh ice cream cone, a much-needed refreshment in that heat. I loved the juxtaposition of a guy who looked so hard with his face tat eating something as soft as an ice cream. I walked up to the car and asked if I could take a picture and he threw up his set. A year later I had this photo showcased in a gallery, his family members had seen it and contacted me saying it was a beautiful photo of him and that he had passed away shortly after I had taken the photo. “

2.

“Seattle, Washington. Growing up in New York we had pretty strict gun laws so living in Washington shocked me a bit. They had open carrying laws which meant if you were over 21 you could have a gun without a concealed-pistol license. This photo was taken at a house party, the night I had learned about the laws there. “

3.

“Brooklyn, New York. I got invited to shoot deathmatch wrestling at a heavy metal bar. In the back of the bar you had guys hitting each other over the head with barbed wire bats and fluorescent light bulbs and in the front you had beautiful girls dancing on top of the bar. Out of fear of pissing off a bunch of rockers, I tipped the girl and asked if it was cool if I took a photo of her earnings that were strapped on her. “

4.

“Seattle, Washington. I’ve been to a lot of punk shows in my life, but the ones in Seattle were something else. I was used to moshpits, people getting pushed and wailing their arms around. The band got revved up and as the lead singer screamed into his microphone, I watched kids get on the floor. They started crawling and throwing their bodies against the floor in perfect synchronization. More and more people started somersaulting onto one another and it was a perfect mess of mangled limbs.”

5.

“Brooklyn, New York. Summer in New York is wild. Almost every night there’s a rooftop party you can escape to, a lot of them are thrown in buildings where there’s easy access to the roof. That means no one at the party actually lives there. At most, the best parties can last up to five or six hours before the cops shut them down, the cops always shut them down tho, usually because of complaints from the people who live in the apartments. This specific night I watched about 200 kids pour off the roof as an entire precinct of cops came to bust the fun. Drunk NY kids and the cops never go hand and hand, so many ended up getting cuffed. The guy in this photo was one of the unlucky ones that night.”

The Kids Are Aight takes place at Take Courage Gallery, 388B New Cross Road, London from 15th – 16th November.
Follow Lauren Lepore here.