Tobias Zielony: Valley Boys

Boredom. Deprivation. Social and geographic isolation. This is the life of young people on the Coedcae estate in South Wales, where there is 75% dependence on the welfare state. With the closure of the pits and increasing influence of drug-related crime, the scene is desolate, and the people have few opportunities to leave. In his documentation of this desperate atmosphere, Tobias Zielony has tried to leave space to show the individuality of the people and how they cope.

Tobias Zielony is studying photography at the University of Wales in Newport after having studied media design in Berlin. Whilst studying in Newport, he has put together a project called the 'Valley Boys' about the Coedcae estate which is situated in South Wales and was built in the late 1950s in order to settle down Welsh travellers. Not many stayed and instead many miners' families moved into the big number of unoccupied houses. However, when in the 1980s most of the neighbouring pits were closed down, Coedcae has today the highest level of social and economical deprivation in Wales with approximately 75% of families being totally dependant on the welfare state. Zielony's photographs focus on boredom and the lack of real events and record a feeling of social and geographical isolation. His other project studies a group of young people who meet at night in a empty car park of the Cwmbran shopping centre. 'Car Park' tells a quiet story that challenges existing preconceptions about boy racers. It talks about growing older and having no place to go but a car park. The photographs leave the shining surfaces of the cars behind and look into the faces of young, sometime vulnerable people.