144 pages Photographs by Adrienne Salinger Text(s) by Sara Lippmann Foreword by Tobias Wolff Designed by Bob Aufuldish, Aufuldish & Warriner 26 x 30 cm Language: English Hardback Publisher: Distributed Art Publishers (DAP) 2025
The new edition of Salinger’s ever-relevant series of 1980s and ’90s teenagers in their bedrooms
Bedrooms contain the past, the present and the future; they are sites of continual transformation. Popular culture and fashion continually change and recycle. While specific objects of decor change over time, teenagers' bedrooms are still private sanctuaries: spaces for safely experimenting during a time in life when one is forming and expressing ever-evolving identities.
Upon its release in 1995, Adrienne Salinger's book In My Room was an immediate success, selling nearly 24,000 copies in its first few years. The continued popularity of this work made in the '80s and '90s is curious. However, over the nearly 30 years since, and especially in the most recent decade of social media, the work's appeal has grown tremendously. In some cases, the work evokes nostalgia, but not primarily so. Adrienne Salinger hears from current teenagers often; many send her pictures of their bedrooms today. Social media encourages users to endlessly "rebrand" their identities, creating idealized fantasies, striving for perfection. These photographs are not about perfection. They give voice to the contradictions of our identities.
Hundreds of print and online articles, interviews and features on In My Room have been published and the work has been exhibited at museums all around the world. Long out of print and now considered a classic, with only a rare few available on the secondary market, the book returns in a new expanded edition as Teenagers in Their Bedrooms. With 26 additional photographs, this treasure is made available once more to new audiences.
Nearly three decades later, the work feels more relevant than ever. In an age shaped by social media’s relentless pressure to curate perfection, Salinger’s portraits stand in stark contrast: honest, chaotic, vulnerable, defiantly imperfect. They reveal bedrooms as transformative spaces where identity is tested, reshaped, and freely expressed, then as now.
Long out of print and celebrated worldwide in exhibitions and publications, this new edition restores the classic while adding 26 previously unseen photographs. More than a document of a past era, Teenagers in Their Bedrooms resonates deeply with new generations, speaking to the universal desire for a room of one’s own.
