MELISSA BLISS

mobile phone photography

Signs of the City is a year long trans-European photography project with young people from London, Berlin, Sofia and Barcelona. The project is now coming to the end with simultaneous events in Berlin and London.

More than 300 young people in 30 workshops across the four cities took photographs documenting urban life and published the results in the online image database citipix.net. This innovative internet photo-community is designed as a modern archive for public use. Anyone can select images from this archive to create their own personal interpretation of the signs that are there. They can search and regroup the images in image bars which can be saved and shared with everyone else.

An extensive exchange programme involving the participants and artists fostered a valuable exchange on both artistic approaches and specific local conditions.

The project was initiated by Urban Dialogues, a Berlin independent arts/community organisation, and brought together professional artists and young people in the four cities. The London partners are Watermans, FreqOUT, Independent Photography and SPACE. The artists were Douglas Nicolson, Erica Scourti, Terez Osztafi and myself.

I worked with young people in Westminster including street homeless young men to take photographs of central London with mobile phones. We uploaded our photographs to the Signs of the City website, citipix.net.

Signs of the City - Metropolis Speaking: Exhibitions and Conferences

Exhibition at Watermans, London
Saturday 4 October - Sunday 2 November
Private View, Wednesday 15 October, 4-8pm

Curated by the young people and artists who took part in London and featuring photography and multimedia from across the four cities.
More information

Conference at the Goethe Institute, London
Signs of the City: Young People's Photographic Imaginary of the European Metropolis
Saturday 4 October 2008, free

A one day conference hosted by the Goethe Institute on participatory arts practice with young people. It is organised by the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Speakers include Michael Keith (CUCR, Goldsmiths), Gillian Rose (OU), Fiona Fieber (SPACE) and artists involved in Signs of the City including myself.
More information and booking at CUCR

Exhibition at Haus der Kulturen der Welt / House of World Cultures, Berlin
Friday 26 September - Sunday 2 November

A exhibition of photography and multimedia across all the workshops in the four cities.
More information

Conference at Haus der Kulturen der Welt / House of World Cultures, Berlin
17 - 18 October 2008

The final event of Signs of the City, the conference brings together artists, researchers, project managers and observers to stimulate a critical dialogue with a specialised public.
Speakers include Dr. Bernd M. Scherer (Director of the House of World Cultures), Eugenio Delfino (Cultural 2007 Programme, BrusselsOutline), Rudolf Netzelmann and Stefan Horn (urban dialogues) and Michael Keith (CUCR).
More information

Publication

A book will be available in January 2009.