Kids

Adapted from Just Kids by Patti Smith
Created & Directed by Seonjae Kim and Sammy Zeisel 
Presented by WAVE Productions at Northwestern University, September 2013

Kids was an original piece inspired by the book Just Kids, a memoir about rock star Patti Smith's early life as a young artist in New York City and her relationship with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who she calls "the artist of my life." The book is about the moment you realize you are an artist, that you "see the world differently than others do," meeting special people that you make art with and discovering that there are as many different types of love as there are people. Patti and Robert were lovers, friends, collaborators, companions, soulmates in ways that our societal labels can't quite describe. In our piece, ten of our friends took turns pretending to be Patti and Robert, our stories as young artists conflating with their creation myth.