young serbs comes from a series of photographs Phil Collins made of his friends in 2000. This was shortly after the democratic revolution in Belgrade and other Serbian cities that overthrew the regime of
Slobodan Milošević. When Collins first visited Belgrade in 1999, he was struck by the young people’s melancholic mood. In this work, aware of the potentially exploitative nature of conflict reportage, Collins seeks to comfort his friends by taking a reparative approach. He portrays them lying down in a situation of intimacy, to encourage feelings of tenderness and hope.