I am currently in the transitory stage between adolescence and adulthood. To quote the 1995 movie Clueless, I’m in my “post-adolescent idealistic phase.” It’s the time when I am no longer considered a child and I am doing everything in my power to appear as though I am a mature adult. I am old enough to pay my own bills, yet I’m still young enough not to be tied down to anything. In transitioning from being a teenager to becoming a responsible twenty-something year old, the bedrooms of not only myself but also my peers reflect this transition.

In Invite Me Into Your Life, I'm asking the owners of these bedrooms to invite me into their personal space. The bedroom is a private room and one of the rooms in a home that we let our guard down. Being invited into someone’s bedroom is a privilege and in viewing the spaces of my peers, I see a common theme between some of our rooms. Though we are twenty-somethings, we’re trying our hardest to not let go of our childhood. From the SpongeBob SquarePants comforter (Courtney Coles, 22) to the stuffed dog gifted from a lover (Hannah Meacham, 22), there’s an underlying theme of never wanting to grow up and wanting to bring the familiarity of our adolescence with us to our adulthood.

The walls, once covered in stickers, photographs and posters from favorite bands now only hold a few photographs and posters, if any. Tessie Navarro, 20, used to have a bedroom filled with posters of her favorite bands but when it came to redecorating, only a few of them made it back up. 

Some of the bedrooms are dorm rooms (Gus Buckman, 20; Hannah Meacham, 22; Rusty Rehl, 20 and George Schultz, 23) and that plays a part in the transitioning from adolescence to adulthood and one of the bedrooms belongs to a young couple (Isabelle Harada, 20 and Michael Lemus, 20) and that ties into the maturing as an adult. With these bedrooms, we're all in search of comfort, a sense of belonging and what our home is. InJohn Knight, 25, though his bedroom is completely bare, his backstory of subletting places since he was 18 speaks more about the searching for a home than any decorations, or lack thereof.

There isn't a clear cut way of knowing when the "post-adolescent idealistic phase" is over, but with this ongoing project, I want to bring out the similarities this age group has.

Spring, 2012

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