As part of the exhibit, the artist has published this text in the form of an insurance company pamphlet:

New adult Manifesto:

The term New Adult refers to a fully grown wise child, different to the idea of adulthood imbued with the musky odour of New Traditionalism.

Why do we—Gen X and Millennials—feel like we are forever coming of age?

Let’s go back to the boomer generation. During their youth, most boomers have subscribed—even if not ideologically—to the traditional family scheme set about by their parents. Particularly, what these two generations had in common was a defined moment when they became adults. Their rite of passage into adulthood was their wedding day. With marriage it was understood that they were leaving their family home to, instantly after, become an adult. Weddings trumped other coming of age ceremonies such as Bar/Bat-Mitzvahs, Quinceañera, school graduation, etcetera, in terms of how effective-immediately people would transform into grown-ups. Into Mr. and Mrs., Señor y Señora. Madame. Monsieur. 

The traditional marriage legacy has lost its footing now. There are a myriad of well known reasons why the institution of marriage is in decline, one of many being our disenchantment with the traditional family unit, which is the core of traditionalism. Have most of us witnessed our parents’ sordid matrimonial experience? Likely. We could safely say that a vast majority of us today haven’t left our family home to get married. We skipped along, just like queer people have done for generations, past that particular set of existential dread issues our parents have dealt with. We have eradicated marriage as a rite of passage into adulthood, and now we are forever coming of age? 

There must be other reasons aside this; how about: In our youth, we viewed adulthood as a large bulk of grey in the far away horizon. Please contest that. (It is unwise to make a generalisation out of a particular and subjective experience, but I don’t like the unpoetic method used by sociologists with their charts on clipboards.) And this: there was a great divide between youth and grown ups. Adults were perceived almost as a different species, like zombies are a different species. Especially that friend of our parents wearing a v necked sweater. We don’t feel like adults because the term has been corrupted by our experience of them? Is it the memory of the staleness of adulthood that has made us weary of the word adult? A rancid funk, an anger-sprinkled vanilla dread ice-cream by the carousel in the park. 

So we skipped passed early marriage, but along the way, we found a different set of problems. Most of us can at least tick one box in this set—again, boxes which queer people have graciously ticked for generations: feeling like a rebel; an outsider; invalidated; under-represented; lost; immature; childlike. This is a set of feelings that might arise in us like ghosts from a dead time, feelings of opposition to a shadow of a scheme. Let’s call this set the forever Non-adult. It is ludicrous to feel this way, we say, so we crush it with self-empowerment. These feelings are weak and invisible, we say, but we long for validation. We are thirsty. Some of us are parched. We need our own customised rite of passage to become someone other than the version running on adulthood 1.0, we want to become a new kind of adult. 

The Peter Pan syndrome is common in Western cosmopolitan cities such as Berlin. Adulthood here is a mirage. But there is a cost to our way of being, something amiss felt at the height of oure abdomen. The need for the New Adult term came about after recognising a certain anxiety caused by the implausibility of adulthood, especially when we are still holding on to the established notion of what an adult is. 

The established notion describes an adult in different stages: young adult, middle adult, old adult. There are secular rites of passage between these stages. As Joseph Campbell said of the passage into old adult life: “As you pass from one stage to another, after middle age you move out of the sphere of achievement into the sphere of enjoyment, appreciation and relaxing into the wonder of it all.” His rite of passage in this case was retiring from teaching. As sound as these stages may be, they are no longer descriptive of actuality; the problem concerns a foundational theory of meaning. We haven’t had a proper rite of passage into adulthood—hence we still feel like children—and yet we are tagged as young or middle aged adults or even old adults. Many of us don’t have a job to retire from. When are we supposed to start enjoying and feeling appreciative? When can we relax? Can we relax?

The stage system is a ladder towards death, and mythology describes this ladder with rites of passage and the hero’s journey. It is an old system and it’s outdated. And perhaps it is because mythology is the thing that keeps us sane, educated and united, that we need a new mythology. One that represents our modern stage-less/ageless feelings and needs. Please think and propose a mythology. Perhaps one where the hero/ine goes through a rite of passage by jumping into a pool fully dressed? Are they at a pool party? 

We want to continue being ageless children but we also want to strive and we do want to achieve something and feel plenitude. Do we need validation of our being, our style and practice? A rite of validation? Someone or something that tells us it’s ok, we are childlike and we can procure a life for ourselves and others. A rite of validation, a sort of graduation or Bar-Mitzvah for all.

A new adult is ageless, a child at heart, a person filled with natural integrity, someone who jumps into the pool early in their youth and emerges with the desire to enjoy the fruits of old age now, not later in life. This lack of patience is very childlike and modern. These fruits being what Joseph Conrad described as “the wonder of it all”. It is a person who foresees their journey from a state of knowing to a state of being. Regardless of achievements and whatever sketchy existence they may fall in and out of, a new adult is an old wise blood looking to share and maintain their plenitude. The ceremony is a validation of this wish and of ourselves as legitimate and functional people.

NEW ADULTS