The “New City“ series offers an insight into the lives of young women living in large housing estates and explores how growing up in a stigmatised environment has shaped them. In the 1970s, numerous estates were built on the outskirts of cities—so-called ‘new towns’. Once seen as symbols of progress and modern living, today they often stand for unfulfilled promises and visions that never came to be.

Breaking away from the usual media portrayals of violence, crime, and hopelessness, the series focuses instead on the hopes and future possibilities of its protagonists. Caught between finishing school and entering the world of work, they are in a formative phase of life—choosing their own paths, often for the first time.

What does it mean to grow up in a place so often defined by its problems? And what longings and perspectives might be hidden behind its façades?

_____

Melina Lehmascher was born in Cologne in 1997. After earning her degree in Communication Design from the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, she is now continuing her studies in the Master’s programme Photography Studies and Practice at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. Her work focuses in particular on the relationship between people and their environments.