The Urban Condition

About

This group of photographers have backgrounds ranging from fine art and commercial photography, to photojournalism and architecture; their work addresses a wide variety of issues. The group span diverse cultural backgrounds; they are united by globalisation, a dominant Western point of view that plays a part in dictating perspective, and a common connection to South East London. Their personal cultural and geographical histories mean they are uniquely located within a modern landscape, producing bodies of work that explore, question and celebrate what can be united under the label of the urban.

Exhibitors explore the different spaces that constitute urban place; spaces improvised and specific in the way they serve communities, public spaces incidental and yet vital to everyday lives, and areas located in distant landscapes that are often overlooked in discussions about the urban. They look at the different constructed identities that are contained and produced by cities, and the ways these identities are shifting in response to changing landscapes.

What constitutes urban place and space? Conceptions about urban land are determined in some measure by cultural backgrounds, and the paths we make and take through the world. The spaces and places that constitute the urban landscape are both concrete and social, embodied by human practices, through which identities are formed and fused to the built environment. This exhibition surveys the interplay between different human needs and desires and the political dynamics that give them structure in urban settings. Exploring the reach of the urban, this group of photographers consider how we divide up and classify spaces, using these systems of categorisation to relate to the unknown in the same terms.

http://www.urbanphotofest.org/urban-condition