Metropolis - City Life in the Urban Age

Groningen: Der Aa-kerk, Oude Postkantoor, Noorderlicht Photogallery

Since the beginning of the 21st century, more than half of the world's population are living in cities. Metropolis:& shy; City Life in the Urban Age shows the many faces of the modern city.

Never in history has the number of people living in cities grown faster than in recent decades. This has enhanced the role of the city as a cultural, economic and social nerve centre. The city is the birthplace for a culture and morality that extends far beyond its boundaries.

In photography of diverse sorts – documentary and constructed – Metropolis literally leads you through a city of images. In and around the main locations, a city will arise, consisting of high buildings, streets and squares where you can walk around and appreciate the images.

Novel

Metropolis is a novel in six chapters and an epilogue. These tell the exciting, shocking, wonderful and overpowering story of City Life in the Urban Age.

Der Aa-kerk: chapters 1, 2, 3, 4
Oude Postkantoor: chapters 5 and 6
Noorderlicht Photogallery: epilogue

Diptych

Metropolis is the second part of a diptych about the consequenses of the worldwide urbanisation. Part 1, Land - Country Life in the Urban Age was held 2010 in Leeuwarden.

ALL PARTICIPATING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Vivian Maier, P.A.P.A., City One Minutes

Alongside the main exhibition Metropolis in the Der Aa-kerk, Noorderlicht Photogallery and Oude Postkantoor, Noorderlicht will host three unique additional exhibitions in Academie Minerva and Het Filiaal.

Vivian Maier: Street Photographer

This unique exhibition in Academie Minerva shows the work of the recently discovered photographer Vivian Maier (1926-2009). Most pictures have never been on display before. Her streetphotography shows humorous, moving, beautiful, and raw images of all facets of city life in America in the 1950's.

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P.A.P.A.: Public Bedroom

Participating Artists Press Agency (P.A.P.A.) is an international network of artists/photographers. Together with _notDef, a design lab from Rotterdam, they designed the exhibition Public Bedroom. The photo series Public Bedroom shows how, in spite of the functional organization of public space, people always find their own way of using it. Regardless of its intended or ‘pure’ purpose.

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City One Minutes

Buildings, squares, cars, bicycles, people, money, poverty, order, chaos: a city is an organism, living twenty-four hours a day and changing every hour. Artists living or briefly residing in cities across the world reveal, in a contemporary way, how they experience city life. They make a one minute video for each hour of the day. Together, these twenty-four fragments form a collective art work, describing one city.

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Satellite Programme

Galleries, museums, and other venues in the city and province of Groningen also organise their own photography exhibitions.

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During opening weekend

September 8 - 11

PhotoStories - debate, workshops and presentations

The PhotoStories conference, held in Rotterdam in May 2011, will organize a follow-up during the Noorderlicht Photofestival in Groningen (September 8 till September 11) with a debate, masterclass and mini-workshops on multimedia photography, webdocumentary and interactive storytelling.

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September 11