In photos: one photographer’s vision of Zürich’s underground youth culture

Born from a collection of over 50,000 pictures, Noah Noyan Wenzinger’s photobook Noyan 2015-2022 pulls together a selection of images from the prolific, Zürich-based photographer’s vast archive. The monograph (published by Edition Patrick Frey) chronicles the world through Wenzinger’s eyes and presents a nuanced portrait of youth culture in his hometown.

Be it a club, a friend’s living room, a smoking area or a snowstorm, Wenzinger’s lens is trained on his immediate experience. One portrait depicts a young woman at what appears to be a cluttered dining table, totally immersed in doodling with a marker pen and surrounded by detritus; one portrait captures friends in the street, nonchalantly smoking, leaning against a wall at night and lit by harsh flash; another photograph depicts a girl whose smiling face is semi-obscured by her baseball cap. In some of the pictures, people are wearing masks which anchors the images in the Covid times and recalls those heady experiences of coming out and mingling after periods of quarantine.

Photography is part of the fabric of Wenzinger’s everyday life. Never without a camera, the moments that compel him to take a picture are many and varied. “It can be anything really,” he says. “Moments can arise everywhere and at any time, even just when I’m going to the grocery store. I always have my camera with me.”

Often unexceptional in isolation, the photographs in Noyan 2015-2022 accumulate meaning with each turn of the page as tales materialise and recede. “A lot of different stories emerge from the book, there is not one single narrative. It’s a collection of stories which, together, are a collage of the time,” he tells Dazed, adding, “I mean, it’s also a coming-of-age type situation.” In a sense, it’s a tapestry of scenes; fragments of memory. While the main overarching theme may be navigating the transition between adolescence and adulthood, the images, when placed side by side, suggest myriad subplots and intrigues.

Another crucial theme of the book is Zürich itself and Wenzinger’s desire to enlarge and challenge wider perceptions of Switzerland’s youth culture. “There’s more to Zürich’s youth culture than most people realise,” the photographer explains in a conversation over email. “It can be cramped and small, but a lot is going on in Zürich for its size. It has a lot of potential.” Are there any surprising or unexpected aspects of the book? “That most of it plays out in Switzerland,” Wenzinger tells us.

The book also incorporates artwork by Noah Stark (AKA Clutterstew) whose graffiti-like illustrations punctuate Wenzinger’s portraits, creating breaks in the flow of photographic imagery. “Noah Stark’s work is based on a rather idiosyncratic form of art, where he puts his mark on everything he wants,” Wenzinger tells us. “The drawings by themselves don’t particularly mean anything specific, neither do they specifically interact with the photographs directly. They are meant to split up the three phases in the book. They deliver a breathing area for the viewer to have a small break after seeing the first and second bunch of the pictures.”

Ultimately, one of the principal takeaways of Noyan 2015-2022 is about maintaining curiosity and interest in the minutiae of the world around you, however seemingly mundane. Wenzinger, who “thinks in pictures”, explains, “My surrounding is a constant flow of ideas for my work. If I am walking around, I always see something that is interesting to me.” And what does he think makes a perfect photograph? “When the essence of the moment is captured in the picture and the viewer experiences this essence,” he concludes. “It doesn't matter if it’s raw or staged.”

Noyan 2015-2022 is published by Edition Patrick Frey and is available to order here now.

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