Portraiture Shortlist

Germany is a supposedly rich industrial country, and yet one in five children lives in poverty; in areas such as Duisburg-Hochfeld this increases to more than every second child. In an environment where different communities mix and criminal gangs sometimes clash, there is a daily struggle for legal and illegal resources. Prostitution, drugs and arms trafficking show the supposedly fast money that can be made, and make growing up here difficult.

My long-term documentary project is about teenage life, social injustice, identity and belonging. The kids I photograph often don’t know their parents’ home country and nor do they feel accepted in Germany, so they use the digits 053 from the postcode of Duisburg-Hochfeld for identification instead. These are the 053kids.

Whether it's children stigmatised as witches in Nigeria, the first female mayor in Afghanistan or miners in the DR Congo who have declared war on the militias. It is the unusual stories that tell us so much about our world that attract him. The fact that he often takes the perspective of children and young people is based on the firm conviction that we should actually be leaving a better world to the next generation - and are obviously in danger of failing to do so.