Cities and Photography

Cities and Photographydiscusses the relationship between people and the city, visualised in photographs. It explores how photographs display attitudes, agency and vision in the way a city is documented and imagined. It provides a visually focused examination of the city and urbanism for a range of different disciplines: across the social sciences and humanities, photography and fine art. Cities and Photographyoffers different perspectives from which to view social, political and cultural ideas about the city. It provides introductions to the theories useful to photographers addressing issues relating to urbanism, and to key photographic themes that inform cultural issues central to a discussion of urbanism (e.g. the street, the everyday, social conditions). A series of case studies, featuring international and contemporary photographic projects, provides a means with which to examine a range of issues, for example: regeneration and displacement, power and the institution, visions of modernity and post-modernity, psycho-geographical space. Cities and Photography interprets the city as a space that we inhabit on different conceptual and physical levels, and gives emphasis to how people operate within, relate to, and activate the city via construction, habitation and disruption. Cities and Photographyadopts a trans-disciplinary approach to complex arguments about our relationship to the objects and spaces that surround us. It aims to relate histories, ideologies and traditions with reference to photographic interpretations of city and urbanism. Useful to an understanding of urban life is the way a photograph shows us our relationship to other people, objects, buildings and space. The analysis of photography, and photography used as commentary and analysis, drives discussion and facilitates understanding. In bridging theory and practice, Cities and Photography aims to demonstrate the potential of photography as a contributor to commentary and analysis and asks: What can photography, as a medium, tell us about traditions, histories, cultural differences and attitudes?