Above is one of the photos from John Davies show, The British Landscape, which has been shortlisted for the prestigious Deutsche Borse Photography Prize. The Birmingham shots were commissioned by Birmingham Central Library in 2000.
The Birmingham photographs form part of Davies’ larger project, Metropoli, which documented the changing face of the post-industrial city scape in the UK. They also feature in his book and exhibition The British Landscape, which was first shown at the National Media Museum, Bradford. This exhibition is currently on show in Paris. This latter work, a series of panoramic black and white photographs, taken between 1979-2005, document the changing post-industrial British landscape.
The Library collaborated with Davies in 2000 by commissioning a series of photographs of Birmingham. Some of these images were subsequently shown in the exhibition Something Old, Something New at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2001 and subsequently featured in the book, World City: Birmingham and its People Portrayed. The Library hold a set of 17 prints from this series.
The exhibition runs at The Photographer’s Gallery in London until April 6th. Details in this PDF.
