‘HeroinKids’. It is a rave, a fashion label, an art project? Anything else? Why the title? What was the thought.
HeroinKids is an art project and a fashion label inspired by illegal rave parties, Berlin’s techno club scene, and punk attitude – a nihilistic vision of beauty, grace, and excess. We also write books and organize raves that are a mix of techno parties and art exhibitions.
Themes like beauty, decay, fragility, drugs, nudity, sex, and downfall move us and run through much of our artistic work. There’s no ulterior motive. It’s a constant reflection on youth, transience, and beauty. The world reflected in HeroinKids is a sick, broken world – but also one full of aesthetics.
‘Heroin Chic’ term was coined in the 1990’s from skinny waif-like models, ‘dark circles under their eyes’ and in prticular with reference to Kate Moss in Calvin Klein campaign and the model Gia Carangi (remembered for being the origin of the heroin chic trend) who’s addiction was a horrible tragiedy to her life. What positive or enlightenment can come from a title ‘HeroinKids’?
You should better look at a beautiful sunflower picture if you want positive aspects. That has nothing to do with HeroinKids. We don’t exclude anything, neither the fascination with drugs nor the suffering. Engaging with it can certainly be enlightening, but it’s not intentionally set by us.
Based in Rave, youth and fashion culture in Germany – is their a cultural dfference in nderstanding in the UK as to what ‘HeroinKids’ means and how the youth react and understand it?
Generally, Berlin is very open and liberal. It’s not special or scandalous if people have public sex in Berghain or KitKatClub. Open drug consumption is also not unusual in Berlin. You go to a bar or club, lie down in a park, and you see people consuming everywhere.
‘MAKING HISTORY NEVER STARTS WITH ASKING FOR PERMISSION’ – is this an underlying tenet to the attitude of HeroinKIds?
Yes.
The umbrella of your practice is ‘Ignorant Fashion’ – is this in reference to HeroinKids in a way to understand that you are just playing with a culture?
It allows the audience to understand where we are coming from; that fashions pervasive images and ideal are so influential and all encompassing.
The photography veers between very base, pantomime, fashion, ugly, dark and sometimes empathetic – what is the narrative?
The images mostly arise from the situation itself – youth has something demonic about it, the world narrows down to a snippet, a mystical interworld that doesn’t ask questions about tomorrow. The photographs reflect a youth that stumbles into things without assessing them, without questioning.
It’s the lifestyle of the “TikTok generation,” growing up with this persistent “I-don’t-care” attitude in this very fast-paced world, trying to get as many likes on their reels as possible.
We consciously use media and media formats in our photography and videos that are currently used by young people.
Who do you see as your audience?
Our audience is surprisingly diverse. Primarily, however, they are young women who find themselves in our work and feel understood, as we often hear, precisely because we don’t exclude anything and show aspects of life that are very close to the reality of many young people.
But we also have an older fanbase, not just, as one might assume, interested in the art but also attending our raves. In Berlin, it’s not unusual to still party at sixty.
Do you glorify an awful destructive addiction and what positives can you seek from such a dialogue.
With HeroinKids, we address lives lived by drugs, addictions, and diseases like anorexia and borderline (BPD), but also the longing for love.
We don’t make definitive statements; we capture the desires of young people for transgression, take them seriously, underline a naive lifestyle, and at the same time clearly show where these desires can lead.
In our artistic work, we distance ourselves from any judgment of life. HeroinKids tells of the fascination that drugs hold and that life doesn’t care about rules or can be contained within boundaries. That might not be pedagogically valuable, but it’s life.
We see it as a whole concept. Often, one aspect influences another.
With some of the photographed girls, we have lived together for longer periods. That’s more like family. And then you go out together – to your own raves – do after-hours, make videos and photos, and design clothes. This strongly inspires one another and grows with us and our life.
How do you approach the different aspects of the fashion label, the raves and the photographic art project/exhibitions?
It is not a direct part of the art project, but it addresses the same themes that we also tackle with HeroinKids. Drugs, self-destruction, violence—especially among teenagers—and abuse. These are themes that we artistically explore in various ways, including through literature.
‘I hope you enjoy watching me die’. – what is the premise for the title of the show?
The exhibition shows a nihilistic vision of beauty, grace, and fragility. A dangerous, immoral kind of beauty, almost life-hostile beauty. HeroinKids isn’t meant to be easy, not even for the viewer. Art should open new thought structures, allow different perspectives on the world. HeroinKids was never intended as a socio-critical project. But the longer we pursued it and the more contact we had, the more visible it became how abandoned many of these young women feel in their suffering. And a large part of society leaves them alone. And so, a kind of destructive attention-seeking grows, including on social media, which finds its audience. It’s human to be fascinated by suffering and decay, just as human as the lust for self- destruction.
Your work”Seelenvernichter” – translation is “Soul-destroyer” highlighting violence amongst teenage girls is a book you both wrote in 2012 (published by UBooks) – does this sit alongside your art project ‘HeroinKids’ and if so in what way.
The book, as well as the art project, will also be discussed in school classes and universities. These are important topics, and with HeroinKids we provide young people with a different approach than many anti-drug projects.
HeroinKids – I Hope You Enjoy Watching Me Die. February 13th – February 27th, 2025, Gallery 46
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Drugs are not a fun “lifestyle”.
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Think carefully about what you are doing with your body and your health.
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