In the summer of 1996, at the height of Berlin’s Love Parade, Alfred Steffen created Portrait of a Generation – The Love Parade Family.
While much of the media focused on the crowds around Berlin’s Victory Column and Tiergarten, Steffen photographed individuals. He wanted to know who the people behind the Love Parade were and what had brought them there.
A Mobile Studio at the Love Parade
For the project, Steffen converted a truck with a hydraulic lift into a mobile photographic studio and positioned it at the Love Parade. He photographed each participant against the same plain white background, removing the visual context of the event and separating the individual from the crowd.
250 People in 25 Hours
Over 25 hours, Steffen photographed 250 people. He made ten exposures of each participant, resulting in 2,500 photographs.
A team of assistants, journalists, scouts, production staff and security supported the project. Each person had approximately five minutes in front of the camera.
Before Smartphones and Social Media
The photographs were made years before smartphones and social media changed the way people present themselves in front of a camera.
The participants came directly from the Love Parade into Steffen’s temporary studio. Their clothes, expressions and physical state remained part of the portraits.
The Book and the Archive
In 1997, TASCHEN published 142 photographs from the project as Portrait of a Generation – The Love Parade Family, with texts by Philipp Oehmke.
The series documents people who took part in Berlin’s Love Parade at a particular moment in the history of European rave culture.
The work has since been shown in group exhibitions at the Philharmonie de Paris (2019), Teatro del Parco Albanese in Venice (2019), the Design Museum in London (2020–2021), Kunstpalast Düsseldorf (2021–2022), and Design Museum Den Bosch (2024).
