Lauren Greenfield – Fotografiska Berlin, Germany

“Social media is our lifeline but it’s also a loaded gun.” – Jonathan, 18

“There are so many old men on Twitter looking for feet pics.” – Ivy, 17

“Because I’m brown and I’m a bigger person, you could call me a cyberbully’s field day.” – Dominic, 17

These aren’t just quotes. They’re lived experiences of three of the thirty teenagers in Los Angeles who shared their phones with Lauren Greenfield as part of a radical experiment documenting the impact of social media on their lives. Over 150 days of filming and more than 2,000 hours of screen recordings; they gave her access to their real and digital lives: their feeds, their texts, their posts, the images and messages they had never shown their parents. The result is Social Studies. The new exhibition opens at Fotografiska Berlin on 25 September 2026.

Social Studies is Greenfield’s latest and deepest investigation into how the media and popular culture transforms coming of age and the first written from inside the phone.

Her earlier works Fast Forward (1997), Girl Culture (2002), and THIN (2006) predate the smartphone, diagnosing a generation shaped by cameras, comparison, and consumer culture long before Instagram existed.

The exhibition arrives in Berlin as Europe intensifies its debate over social media restrictions for minors, with France already enforcing age limits and several other countries like Germany considering similar measures. It is not a policy argument. It is a portrait – raw, unfiltered, and rendered in the vocabulary of the generation it documents.

First released globally as a five-part documentary series on FX and Disney+, Social Studies now becomes an exhibition you walk through. Across 5,000 square feet, Greenfield explores what usually lives inside a six-inch screen, slowing the endless scroll until it becomes visible – and legible – as a shared experience of adolescence.

Through photographs, installations, and immersive environments, the exhibition traces how social media reshapes identity. Giant photo grids turn private posts into public conversation: hundreds of snapshots, viral beauty trends, and emotional selfies exploring bullying, beauty standards, comparison, race, sexuality, and the life-altering decisions of teenage life. A dedicated screening room presents all five episodes of the Social Studies documentary series, inviting visitors to spend extended time with the voices at the heart of the exhibition.

BEYOND THE MUSEUM

Social Studies extends well beyond the museum walls. In partnership with the Education Innovation Lab and Adenauer Campus, Fotografiska Berlin is turning the exhibition into a citywide educational initiative focused on dialogue, participation, and long-term impact.

At its core are interactive workshops with young Berliners, whose experiences shaped a new digital learning resource for schools. Developed from the perspective of the generation most affected by social media, the resource gives teachers practical tools to explore both the opportunities and the risks of digital platforms in the classroom. It will be added to the Digital Sparks platform for the exhibition opening and introduced at a Fall 2026 teachers’ conference convened with the Berlin Senate.

Because the exhibition speaks directly to young audiences, Fotografiska Berlin is offering free admission for school classes and social institutions. Teachers can register for a guided visit here.

A parallel public program brings together young people, parents, educators, policymakers, artists, and cultural voices to exchange perspectives and explore solutions to some of the most pressing issues of our time. Developed with a network of partners – including FAQ YOU as the exhibition’s Health Impact Partner – the program extends the conversation beyond the museum, connecting communities and creating space for meaningful dialogue, critical reflection, and change.

Credits

All works in Social Studies are by Lauren Greenfield, who conducted all interviews. Film scenes are from her streaming docuseries Social Studies on (FX/Disney+) screening in the final gallery of this exhibition. Photography typologies and new video works called Trend Studies include social media collected between 2021 and 2026.

This exhibition is curated by Lauren Greenfield with Trudy Wilner Stack, in collaboration with Jessica Jarl, Global Director of Exhibitions at Fotografiska, and Thomas Schäfer, Director of Exhibitions, Fotografiska Berlin.

Photography, cinematography, interviews, and group sessions took place between 2021 and 2023, centered on the 2021-22 school year, with 30 teen participants from ten Los Angeles public and private high schools. The project began with their return to school following COVID isolation, during a period of increasing social media engagement and the growing replacement of real-life experiences with time spent online.

Photographs were made with Canon cameras and are courtesy of the artist and Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles. Archival pigment prints were made by Richard Maier in 2025 and 2026 under the artist’s supervision.