{"product_id":"catherine-balet-identity-9783865212269","title":"Catherine Balet: Identity","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn January 2004  while the French government was debating banning religious and political symbols from schools  Catherine Balet began taking pictures of signs  labels  codes and icons that have social and aesthetic significance in the teenage world. As she extended that project from Paris to London  Berlin  Barcelona and Milan  it quickly became a record of the dress codes in European schools  a reference work on tribal subdivisions there. Teenagers in their struggle for identity and self-esteem  troubled by an urgent desire to be different  usually adopt the codes of a group  often inspired by music trends and always tweaked by circumstance  conscious individuation or both. In each city  Balet discovered the same music  fashion  brands  bands and labels. Only the details differed  reflecting the complexity of the history of each country or the influence of its migrant populations. In London and Barcelona  where the uniform is a school institution  details are all that students have by which to define themselves: Balet captures the ways in which these students customize their outfits. Her large  richly descriptive portraits  set in the street  combine documentary style with poetic sensibility  capturing the complex mix of youth and age inherent to adolescence  its fragility and determination  and the eras new mix of global homogenization and local individuation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67972236312629,"sku":"ByrdShop_3865212263","price":130.64,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9783865212269.jpg?v=1794625043","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/catherine-balet-identity-9783865212269","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}