Photo City: How Images Shape the Urban World opens at V&A Dundee
The invention of photography transformed the world, with the explosion of photographic experimentation in the mid-19th century coinciding with the rapid growth of cities across the globe.
A new, free exhibition at V&A Dundee, co-curated by V&A Dundee and V&A South Kensington uses the V&A’s spectacular photography collections to explore the ways photography and cities have influenced each other.
Marking 10 years of Dundee’s designation as the only UNESCO City of Design, Photo City: How Images Shape the Urban World shows that photography does more than document and reflect city life. As a design tool photography also shapes our understanding of cities and helps us project future ways of living together.
In the exhibition visitors can see iconic city photography by some of the most acclaimed photographers in history including Henri Cartier Bresson, Berenice Abbott and Paul Strand, and discover how these works have influenced the way cities are designed and experienced.
Visitors will also encounter exciting work by contemporary architects, photographers and artists who question the ways images shape, reflect and mediate our daily lives. The exhibition also expands on the idea of what photography is by including contemporary imaging technologies such as GPS, drones, gaming technology and lidar scanning.
A highlight is a new large-scale portrait of Dundee commissioned for the exhibition, the latest city in Japanese photographer Sohei Nishino’s ambitious ‘Diorama Map’ series, which also includes Tokyo, New York, Paris, London and Rio de Janeiro. Nishino lived in Dundee for a month, during which time he walked the streets, met residents and took thousands of photographs of social spaces, cultural events, sporting events and sites of cultural significance. On his return to Japan, he created a collage of his experience, assembling by hand thousands of photographs to create the 5 metre wide semi-realistic, semi-imagined ‘Diorama Map, Dundee’.
Sohei Nishino said, “Dundee is the smallest city I have worked in, but the final result was bigger than many of the other cities because I focused more on the people and events. If you look at a city from a bird’s eye view, it will just flow by you. By walking and exploring together with local people, I believe I was able to create a work that captures the landscape from multiple points of view.”
Another major new commission is a fun interactive videogame designed to encourage collaboration and creativity when thinking about urban planning and the built environment. Gimbal City is designed by former University of Dundee graduates, Sasha Belitskaja and Shaun McCallum of architecture design and research studio iheartblob. Their work uses technology to empower more people to take part in the design and architecture of the places that surround us.
Exhibition curator, Francesca Bibby said, “Gimbal City is a playable installation where players can collaborate and become architects of an imagined city. Changes other players make will impact the city design too, so they must work together. It’s a fun way to engage with the ideas we are addressing in the exhibition.”
Exhibition curator, Lisa Springer said, “To curate this exhibition we delved into the incredible photography collections at the V&A and have taken the opportunity to interpret iconic works in totally new ways by considering their influence on architecture and design. This has given us the chance to curate a different type of photography exhibition for a design museum.”
Exhibition curator, Brendan Cormier said “There have been thousands of exhibitions on photography and cities before. Where Photo City is different, however, is in its emphasis on photography as an active agent, a technology that doesn’t just reflect the changing nature of cities but is a powerful force in shaping cities.
“Today, we are surrounded by photographic images and the acts of taking, sharing and responding to them are integral to daily life. This exhibition explores how from the mesmerizing inventions of the earliest photographs, through photography’s many technological developments, images are still entirely central to the way we design, experience and imagine cities.”
In partnership, UNESCO City of Design Dundee will host a series of free ‘Photo Walks’ led by local photographer Ben Douglas. Each Photo Walk will take place in a different location across Dundee, focusing on the city’s high streets, residential areas, architecture and iconic landmarks. The first Photo Walk is on Sunday 7 April, running monthly until October.
The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of talks, workshops, tours and events for all audiences bring together leading and emerging designers, makers, artists and academics to explore, expand and investigate the exhibition themes.
Photo City also features a free immersive audio tour which brings some iconic images to life, with interviews with photographers such as Ed Ruscha, Randhir Singh, Jenny Odell, and Clement Valla, as well as the exhibitions curators. This audio tour is available exclusively on the Smartify app: https://app.smartify.org/tours/photo-city
Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) will show a special screening of Thomas Anderson’s video essay, Los Angeles Plays Itself on Saturday 6 April in association with the exhibition and a ‘Design Sprint’ produced in collaboration with iheartblob will take place in October.
More than 150 photographs, films and installations are on display as part of the free exhibition, Photo City: How Images Shape the Urban World , opening Friday 29 March until 29 October 2024 at V&A Dundee.
Photo City: How Images Shape the Urban World is supported by The Dalmore Single Highland Malt.
Sohei Nishino’s Dundee Diorama supported by Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, Michelin Corporate Foundation.
Gimbal City by iheartblob is funded by the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, awarded by Dundee City Council.
