IRL (In Real Life)
© Niccolo’ Rastrelli
IRL (In Real Life) is an ongoing photographic project that explores the identity and representation of Generation Z — the first to grow up in a world where real and digital life merge seamlessly, redefining boundaries, relationships, and forms of personal expression. Through a documentary and intimate approach, the project portrays young people within their most personal spaces — their bedrooms — juxtaposing these portraits with images taken from their smartphones: selfies, stories, posts, and screenshots that shape their online presence. Two visual worlds, one physical and one digital, intersect and overlap to authentically narrate the complexity of contemporary youth.Born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s, this generation uses images as a language — a tool for identity and belonging. IRL observes how, from Milan to Delhi, Nairobi to Buenos Aires, the same digital gestures and symbols have become a global code, while still reflecting different cultures, dreams, and contradictions.
The project’s ambition is to expand across all continents, building a visual archive capable of capturing both the universal and intimate dimensions of a connected generation. In the long term, IRL will evolve into a series of international exhibitions and a book — creating a space for dialogue between young people and adults, cultures and languages, the real and the virtual.
click to view the complete set of images in the archive.
InstituteTM (collectively Institute Pictures, Institute Studios, & Institute Artist) is redefining how stories are produced and told in the 21st Century. Founded by Producer Frank Evers and Director/Visual Artist Lauren Greenfield, we are a multiplatform production company representing auteur-driven storytellers across commercials, photography, fine art, film, and technology — and producing original work across every screen that those stories live on. Our multiplatform expertise and established global relationships in entertainment, commercial, fine art, and journalism create unmatched reach and cross-pollination of creative work. A film commission informs a photography campaign; a fine art practice shapes a commercial; an editorial relationship opens a documentary. Few companies operate fluently across all of these worlds. Institute was built this way from the ground up.
Clients include: Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft/Xbox, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Nike, Adidas, Lululemon, Under Armour, Dove, Maybelline, Clinique, Ulta Beauty, Aesop, Vaseline, LEGO, Balenciaga, Dior, Tom Ford, Kenzo, Supreme, Van Cleef & Arpels, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Toyota, McLaren, Pennzoil, American Express, Chase, U.S. Bank, Burger King, Chobani, Corona, Pepsi, Nespresso, Lavazza, Velveeta, Airbnb, Four Seasons, Marriott, Instacart, eBay, JCPenney, Levi's, Swatch, Bang & Olufsen, Bayer, Pfizer, Genentech, EA, Planned Parenthood, Ad Council, and the United Nations. Editorial and publishing partners include: The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, TIME, Bloomberg, National Geographic, The Economist, Monocle, Le Monde, Stern, Sunday Times Magazine, Phaidon, Steidl, Abrams, Prestel, Chronicle, and Random House.
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