Wanda Martin - Devon And Marlon
“The Ballad of Eternal Youth” is an intergenerational photography project by father and daughter duo Gábor and Wanda Martin, centered around the lives of young people in 1970s socialist Hungary and 2010s London. Not only were these photos taken 40 years and a thousand miles apart, but Wanda had no knowledge of her father’s shots when she took her own, making the similarities between the two sets of images even more striking. Here, Marigold Warner explores how, whether behind the Iron Curtain, where freedom of expression was restricted, or in the clubs and bars and flats of 21st century East London, the youthful desire to let loose, express yourself, dance and fall in love is a constant.
Sunbathing in the park, dancing till sunrise, sharing cigarettes with strangers and kissing on street corners. The rituals of youth are achingly familiar in these images by Wanda Martin and her father Gábor Martin. Their photos were made a thousand miles and four decades apart, first in 1970s socialist Hungary and then East London in the 2010s. Youth tends to look familiar in photos—all entwined bodies and flushed faces—but the similarities here are striking, with a story that goes deeper than just shared euphoria.
Gábor grew up behind the iron curtain in Békéscsaba, a city in southeast Hungary. He started his career in his twenties as a photojournalist covering domestic politics. Like many young people, he was captivated by rock and beat music, but it was near-impossible to import records from Britain or the US. “The political regime viewed anything arriving from the West with suspicion, fearing it could ‘poison’ young minds,” he explains. The Working Men’s Club was one of the few places where young people could dance to the latest music. “It was an ecstatic experience,” he remembers. “We only had a faint idea of what life in the West might be like, and music played a fundamental role in fueling these imaginings.” The parties were notoriously rowdy, and Gábor returned week after week to capture the scenes. As time and life moved on, he forgot about the images, which were stored in an archive to be re-discovered decades later.
Youth always has the same drive: to escape everyday realities, fall in love, dance and live freely.
40 years on, completely unaware of her father’s photos, 23-year-old Wanda Martin moved to London. She was swept up into a lively party scene, at venues like The Moth Club, The Shacklewell Arms, the now-closed Alibi, and afterparties at friends’ or strangers’ houses. Naturally, she took along her 35mm camera to document all the interesting people she met—musicians, friends and regulars. A few years into it, she discovered her father’s archive of nightlife images. “There was a surprising similarity between his pictures and mine, despite them being from entirely different times and places,” she recalls. “The fashion, hairstyles and even the technical details.”
Wanda is now a successful photographer working between fashion and music, and back then she was starting to carve out her own career. Unlike her father’s time in socialist Hungary, the only oppression in East London was the inevitability of Monday morning—but the same recklessness glints in the eyes of her subjects. “Youth always has the same drive: to escape everyday realities, fall in love, dance and live freely,” she says. “I started consciously seeking images that mirrored my father’s process.”
Now, both Wanda and Gábor’s images are combined in “The Ballad of Eternal Youth,” titled in homage to Nan Goldin’s visual diary of intimacy. In a similar operatic sweep, Wanda and Gábor’s book captures the rush of growing up through a gritty and unfiltered lens. “This project not only documents a specific period of our lives and our friends, but it also carries deeper, more universal messages,” says Gábor. “This book captures the magic of music, rebellion, the desire to belong and the longing to fall in love.” The images are intentionally uncredited for this reason. A close look might reveal signs of the times—like a poster of Lenin hanging behind the DJ, or a subject clutching an iPhone—but Wanda and Gábor’s photos are mostly indistinguishable. People dance, kiss, hug and smoke—in leather jackets, and with dodgy haircuts and tattoos. These small details might serve as subtle reminders of a changing world, but the essence remains the same.
“I once considered these images banal, whether because they were simple and informational, or because I categorized them as mere snapshots,” says Gábor. Through this collaboration, Gábor has found new meaning in his photos. “They’ve become interesting in ways I could never have imagined… A picture’s intrigue doesn’t just come from whether it captures something banal or extraordinary—it can also come from the passage of time itself, from the way the world has moved on around it.”
Indeed, a lingering nostalgia pervades these photos—a bittersweetness of a time gone by. Perhaps that’s what makes youth so intoxicating. It’s temporal, but timeless—a brief spark, but one that lingers vividly in memory. A whirlwind that is impossible to grasp while you’re in it, but instantly recognizable when it’s gone. To look at these photos is to feel the ache of nostalgia, but to also remember the thrill of youth—an experience that will continue to connect us all.
