Davide Deriu Research

Picturing Cities

This collaborative project is concerned with the historical and cultural significance of the photobook as a form of urban narrative. Jointly led by Davide Deriu and Angelo Maggi (Università Iuav di Venezia), and involving a number of international scholars, it culminated in the publication of an edited book, Picturing Cities: The Photobook as Urban Narrative (FrancoAngeli, 2024), which illustrates a range of aesthetic attitudes as well as analytical approaches to the representation of Western cities.

What is a photobook? The term refers to various illustrated publications, in which photographic images play a central role. Often resulting from the collaboration between photographers, editors and graphic designers, they make it possible to read and interpret specific subjects – including cities – through curated sequences of images, often in conjunction with literary or critical texts. Throughout its history, this versatile form of publication has allowed photographers to depict urban environments in widely different ways.

Although the photobook has been integral to the construction of urban narratives since the early-twentieth century, its significance for the experience and perception of cities has so far been rarely investigated. Picturing Cities addresses this gap by mapping the shifting nature and function of photobooks on to the history of urban representation. The collection of essays from Europe and the Americas (published digitally in Open Access) opens up a multidisciplinary field of research with the potential to expand into further geographical and cultural areas.