Mega City Photo Exhibition: Call for Photographers

I’m curating Mega City Photo, a street photography exhibition at Leeds College of Art. The show is to open in early 2012 in a new gallery space at the college, and – at the moment – I’m still accepting submission.  More about the exhibition and the 26 cities to be featured in the show listed below.

Mega City Photo

Some time over the past few years, the world’s population shifted from being mostly rural to mostly urban.

This global move from countryside to cityscape created urban environments the likes of which have never been experienced – at least not on the scale now witnessed – and gave rise to the modern phenomenon of the mega city.

The United Nations defines a mega city as an “urban agglomeration with ten million inhabitants or more”. In 1950, the world had but two population centres fitting that bill: New York and Tokyo. A quarter century later only one other metropolis, Mexico City, was added to the list. Then from 1975 to 2000, 15 more cities grew to have populations greater than ten million. Today, there are an estimated 26 agglomerations with at least ten million inhabitants.

Mega City Photo seeks to exhibit professional and amateur street photographs which examine the conditions inherent to life in the 21st century mega city:

• disparity between rich and poor;
• the juxtaposition of traditional folkways and contemporary urban life;
• the overwhelming crush of millions of people living in shared urban spaces;
• alienation versus new ways for city dwellers to connect and communicate in the digital age; and
• the effects, ramifications and opportunities caused by mega cities, globalization and increased world travel.

Mega City Photo will be exhibited at Leeds College of Art January to February 2012.

World’s 26 Mega Cities (source):

Beijing – Buenos Aires – Cairo -Delhi
Dhaka – Guangzhou – Istanbul – Jakarta
Karachi – Kolkata – Lagos – London
Los Angeles – Manila – Mexico City
Moscow – Mumbai – New York – Osaka
Paris – Rio de Janeiro – São Paulo – Seoul
Shanghai – Tehran – Tokyo 

If you think you’ve got some shots that apply, drop me a line at CHRIS . OSBURN @ GMAIL . COM with “MEGA CITY PHOTO” in the subject field (and please only include links to images or low rez samples in your email!). Feel free to pass the word on to any photographers you think might be interested in contributing to the exhibition.