MELISSA BLISS

mobile phone photography

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 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 Melissa Bliss, Douglas Nicolson, Terez Osztafi and Erica Scourti.

Signs of the City - Metropolis Speaking: Exhibitions and Conferences

Exhibition: Signs of the City: Metropolis Speaking
Haus der Kulturen der Welt / House of World Cultures, Berlin
26 September – 2 November 2008

A exhibition of photography and multimedia across all the workshops in the four cities: Berlin, London, Sofia, Barcelona

Exhibition: Signs of the City
Watermans, London
4 October – 2 November 2008

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

Conference: Signs of the City: young people's photographic imaginary of the European metropolis
Goethe Institute, London
4 October 2008

I presented a paper on working with street homeless young men at this conference on participatory arts practice with young people. The conference was organised by the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Conference: Signs of the European City
Haus der Kulturen der Welt / House of World Cultures, Berlin
17 – 18 October 2008

The final event of Signs of the City, bringing together artists, researchers, project managers and observers to stimulate a critical dialogue with a specialised public. Speakers included 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).

Publication

Signs of the City (2009)
Includes photographs of London taken on mobile phones by homeless young men working with Melissa Bliss