'Youth of Belfast' by Toby Binder

In Northern Ireland, Protestant Unionists and Catholic Nationalists live in homogeneous neighborhoods that are still divided by walls. While they stick to their own symbols of identity and tradition, they wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, have the same haircuts and often the same worries such as violence, unemployment, social discrimination and lack of prospects. The photo essay depicts the ubiquity of problems afflicting Belfast’s youth, on both sides of the Peace Wall.
I have been documenting the daily life of teenagers in British working-class communities for more than a decade. After the Brexit referendum I focussed on Belfast. There is serious concern that Brexit will threaten the 1998 Peace Agreement. The images were photographed in six different neighborhoods of Belfast, both Catholic and Protestant. The majority were taken in 2017 and 2018, a few before the referendum.