Hope, love and trumpets: young Venezuelans – in pictures

Daryeicy, 2023

Venezuelan Youth is photographer Silvana Trevale’s paean to her homeland, featuring shots taken over the past decade. It aims to present a different side to a country often portrayed in crisis. Instead, it focuses on the complexities of Venezuelan identity as seen through the eyes of its young people. Venezuelan Youth by Silvana Trevale is published by Guest Editions. An accompanying exhibition is at Guest Project Space, London E8, 7-30 May. All photographs by Silvana TrevaleShare

Flor en alto, 2024

Returning to Venezuela from London every year since 2017, Trevale has explored the lives and daily struggles of its youth, spending extended time with her subjects and their families to build closer relationshipsShare

Inocencia en mar, 2019

‘I grew up listening to stories of a splendid and opulent Venezuela,’ says Trevale. ‘But those stories from my parents and grandparents always felt foreign to me. They are memories that do not belong to me and that today feel almost unreal. My Venezuela, the one I experienced, is different: I grew up in a country of hardship’Share

Isaac and Yonaiker, 2021

‘Although I did so from a position of privilege, I witnessed loss: of people who left, of traditions that vanished, and of a youth whose faith was fractured. That reality has made us tougher’Share

Petare, 2021

‘I believe that my generation is burdened with post-traumatic stress disorder after decades of pain and destruction. That is why I have poured my energy into documenting the Venezuela that really exists: the one I love deeply, a wounded and fearful country, but one that still breathes hope’Share

Novia llanera, 2022

‘I was determined to do a project that would depict the country through the eyes of young people’Share

Los Caracas, 2022

‘I want to capture that transition between childhood and the abrupt theft of innocence that the youth in Venezuela have to live through. They are there, playing, but suddenly the reality of a complex country in crisis hits them’Share

Avenida libertador al viento de trompeta, 2022

‘I left Venezuela in a state of emotional turmoil. My parents were terrified of the insecurity, especially after I was held at gunpoint while in the car. That’s when they told me, “You have to leave.” But even though I left, the girl who grew up there remains intact. Every time I return to my parents’ house, she comes back’Share

Beso playero, 2021

‘That’s what my project is about: transforming the trauma of having left into a tribute to the strength of those who are there today, building their own path. My work has become a collective contribution to Venezuela: an alternative, sensitive and profound view of our identity’Share

Respiro, 2019

‘Creating this book has been a healing process. When I started it, I realised that I was carrying a pent-up anger and a deep sadness for what had happened to my country. However, photography allowed me to transmute that pain into something beautiful: a visual testimony that, despite everything, we are still here’Share

Comunión, 2023

‘We are a resilient people, with an infinite capacity to create and love even in the midst of a deep fracture. In the end, the great lesson this project leaves me with is that the only thing that remains is affection: for family, for friends and for the land of our birth’Share

Los Roques, 2022

‘My hope is that, as they turn the pages, people will feel that Venezuela is much more than a crisis. It is luminosity, it is playfulness, it is resistance. It is everything I tried to protect and capture with my camera so that we do not forget who we are’Share