Oliver Baldwin Made a Zine About Kids Born in the 90s

The other day we received a cute little envelope to the VICE Nordics office with the fanzine Bara Barn inside, which translates to “Just Kids” (it sounds a lot more cute in Swedish, “Barrrrraaaa Baaaaarrrrrrn”). The zine was from this kid Oliver Baldwin who had written a cute little note to us that made us all want to take him home and comb his hair forever.

It turned out that Oliver is born in the 90s and all photos in the fanzine are photos of kids born in the 90s, snapped by Oliver, and his friends who are also born in the 90s (you get the concept, right?) Since I’m born in the 90s, too, and was fascinated about the beautiful way Oliver and his friends have managed to capture my, in Sweden, doomed generation, I decided to get in touch.

Photo by Hedvig Holgersson

VICE: Hi Oliver, how did you come up with this idea?
Oliver Baldwin: I had seen photos snapped by some of my friends in Stockholm, and I started to see a concept around the young people of today. To me, the youth today is a little misjudged in other books and zines about our generation. So I wanted to represent my view of the Stockholm youth at the moment, and so the zine was born.


Photo by Peter Stahre

What do you think people will think of young people today in, say, 50 years or so?
I really don’t know. I don’t think that there’s anything that currently defines our generation. But I think that maybe very soon, we will be defined by unemployment, and by our anger against authorities. However, this zine tries to showcase the simple pleasures of our youth.


Photo by Oliver Baldwin

Do you think that in the future, our generation will be referred to with a cool name that group us all together?
In Sweden, I think we will be referred to as 90-talisterna, the 90s-people, just like those born in the 40s are. Or just 90s kids. That’d be cool. I would call myself a 90-talist though.


Photo by Nora Curtis

Who are the people in the zine? And why did you guys photograph them?
They are friends of mine and friends of the photographers featured in the zine. Each photographer was selected through friends of friends and so on. I like that the photos are personal and not set up in anyway, spontaneous. In the same style as Nan Goldin has captured New York, I want the zine to capture the Stockholm youth on a personal level, on a night out rather than in some studio.


Photo by Vincent Sjögren

So what’s next?
I see the zine as a concept that hopefully will carry on with other editions over the years. I think that each generation in Stockholm always have been photographed in depth, and I see Bara Barn as the first in a series of photos about our generation in the Swedish capital.


Photo by Hedvig Holgersson

And at last, what do you remeber most about the 90s?
That’s probably Friends, Game Boy, and Furbys. And a lot of crap music. Oh yeah, and the Oasis.

See more of Oliver’s work here, and more of Bara Barn here.

More more stuff about zines:

Maggie Lee’s Teenage Boys and Girls

I Publish a Magazine Full of Half-Naked Little Boys