After presenting Sugar for the Pill at the 10th edition of the PhotoVogue Festival: Women by Women, Lexi Hide reflects on the memories, friendships, and moments of rebellion that shaped her photographic world.

Lexi Hide, Dust it Off

School uniforms, bruised knees, bedrooms, fireworks, moments caught between danger and boredom: Lexi Hide’s Sugar for the Pill is a return to teenage girlhood. The series takes its name from Simon Scott & Slowdive’s 2017 shoegaze song, a track full of longing, distance, and the sadness of looking back. Like the song, Hide’s photos drift between memory and imagination, where the past stays emotionally intense but always out of reach.

Lexi Hide, Poison Ivy

Lexi Hide, Look at You

The teenage scenes in Sugar for the Pill aren’t purely autobiographical. They’re shaped by the cultural imagination of a generation that grew up during the Tumblr years of 2012–15, marked by the dreamy sadness of indie music and the reckless youth seen in films like Kids (1995) and Palo Alto (2013). Even the titles of Hide’s photos come from songs from the early 2010s to today, forming a generational playlist with artists like Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Japanese Breakfast, Phoebe Bridgers, and Ethel Cain.

But Sugar for the Pill isn’t a romanticized view of adolescence. Hide explores how memories of youth are built through an ongoing mix of real experiences and cultural references, where the line between reality and fiction starts to blur.

Lexi Hide, I Know The End

When you started Sugar for the Pill in 2023, adolescence was still a recent part of your life. What made you want to revisit that time through photography?

Adolescence was a time when everything felt incredibly intense. There was a sense of play and spontaneity that I hadn’t felt the same way since. Making the images for Sugar for the Pill with my close friends became a way to tap back into that playful energy. I was twenty-four, so I wasn’t a teenager anymore, but I also didn’t feel fully like an adult, and those years still felt very close emotionally. In some ways, turning toward them was also a way to put off the idea of adulthood.

Lexi Hide, So Good at Being in Trouble

How do your memories of adolescence find their way into Sugar for the Pill?

Not every photo refers to a specific moment. Some are direct references to things that happened, while others just capture the emotional feel of a certain time or feeling.

The image of a girl sitting in front of fireworks is loosely based on a memory of Guy Fawkes Night. I was hanging out with friends in a parking lot; there were big fireworks, and a piece of burning cinder landed on my chest. It was painful, but also strangely beautiful — a moment of fear, awe, and wonder. In recreating the image, I tried to tap into that same emotional intensity.

Lexi Hide, Be Sweet

When you create a photograph, are you trying to recover a feeling, a memory, or a past version of yourself?

It’s mostly about recovering a feeling. The photo with the school uniform has a very personal story behind it. The uniform was from an Anglican school I went to, which I found extremely controlling. I spent those years fighting against the institution in every way I could. I was always causing trouble until I was eventually expelled. Using the uniform in the photo became a way to continue that rebellion and cause trouble for them again.

Lexi Hide, Everybody Wants to Love You

Lexi Hide, Internet Friends

Lexi Hide, Sing for a Stranger

Lexi Hide, All You Gotta Be When You’re 23 is Yourself

The staged worlds of Sugar for the Pill are built around friendship, performance, and play. Were those elements already there when you first started taking photos?

When my friends and I were teenagers, we would spend whole days creating photoshoots and making images together. It was lessIt’s less about photography and more about playing with identity—performing different versions of ourselves. At first, it felt a bit intimidating, but I slowly realized I enjoyed being behind the camera: directing, arranging, and shaping a scene. Being with my friends also let me be a little bossy and take full control of every detail. Those early experiences gave me the confidence and sense of control that I still bring into my work today.

Lexi Hide, It Hurts Until it Doesn’t
Lexi Hide, Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud seep out

Your work creates a strong sense of nostalgia while also showing it as something constructed. What draws you to that tension?

Photography is naturally nostalgic because every image instantly belongs to the past. But I don’t want to use nostalgia as an easy shortcut. In my work, nostalgia is the subject, not the method. I deliberately include contemporary objects and details that make it clear these images couldn’t have been taken during my actual teenage years. The nostalgia itself is staged. The photos create a false sense of remembering, and that contradiction is central to the work.

Adolescence is often romanticized in popular culture. How do you handle the tension between the beauty of those memories and their more difficult or uncomfortable sides?

All memory is unreliable. You never really know what you can trust. Some memories from that time are beautiful, and some are very painful. Even the good ones often involve behavior that now seems extreme. We were reckless with ourselves and with each other. There was a cruelty and carelessness that came with being young and not understanding the consequences of our actions. Adolescence wasn’t just beautiful—it was chaotic, dramatic, and sometimes destructive.

Images by Lexi Hide

Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about Sugar for the Pill The False Nostalgia in Lexi Hides Teenage Scenes covering both basic and deeper concepts

BeginnerLevel Questions

1 What does Sugar for the Pill mean in this context
Its a metaphor The pill is the harsh reality of growing up The sugar is the false nostalgia we use to make that reality easier to swallowlike pretending the past was better than it actually was

2 What is false nostalgia
Its a longing for a past that never really existed In Lexi Hides work its when characters or the art itself romanticize teenage moments as perfect ignoring the anxiety awkwardness or loneliness that was actually there

3 Who is Lexi Hide
Lexi Hide is the artist who created the Teenage Scenes series The FAQ is analyzing how her work tricks viewers into feeling nostalgic for a youth that is portrayed as sweeter than it really was

4 Is false nostalgia a bad thing
Not necessarily bad but it can be misleading Its a coping mechanism Hides work shows how we often edit our memories to avoid pain The bad part is when it stops us from seeing our real experiences or pressures us to chase an impossible perfect past

5 Can you give a simple example from the Teenage Scenes
A photo of a teenager lying on a messy bedroom floor with fairy lights The scene looks dreamy and cozy But the real moment might have been filled with boredom texting a friend who didnt reply or feeling stuck The fake nostalgia is seeing only the cozy part

AdvancedLevel Questions

6 How does Hides work specifically create false nostalgia
She uses specific visual tricks soft warm lighting slightly faded colors and framing that cuts out the mess or the unhappy faces She also times scenes at twilight or early morning which feel like memories in the making This makes viewers project their own idealized memories onto the images