Look 11 photography festival programme revealed
The programme for Liverpool's first international photography festival, Look 11, has been announced.
More than 100 international, national and local photographers will take part in the six-week festival which begins on 13 May, 2011.
Artistic director Stephen Snoddy says the theme of the festival - "a call to action" - throws up comparisons between the 1980s and the present day.
Displays look back at the Toxteth riots and the miners' strike.
Mr Snoddy said: "The theme that was set is interesting in terms of politics, social relations and what is actually happening in today's world.
"There's always the human story behind the political imperatives of the day.
"We do see similarities, in the public sector in Liverpool alone there are 1,500 jobs going, we're talking about the battle between Labour controlled councils and a Conservative, or Coalition led government.
"We're coming in to a situation which I think parallels what was happening in the early 1980s.
"There's a balance in the festival of what I would call archive work, what I would call recent work and then newly commissioned work."
Paul Trevor's images of Everton and Toxteth in the 1970s will be shown at the Walker Art Gallery, the International Slavery Museum will host Homer Sykes' pictures of the Toxteth riots and Don McPhee's photographs of the miners strike will be exhibited at Liverpool Hope University.
At Milk and Sugar, John Davies' exhibition Signs of War catalogues the war memorials of Liverpool, alongside Donovan Wylie's images of British Army watchtowers in Northern Ireland.
The May 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is shown in Ed Burtynsky's exhibition at Contemporary Urban Centre Liverpool alongside Robert Polidori's photographs of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The Open Eye Gallery's archive will be revealed in an exhibition curated by Mitch Epstein US photographer.
Festival organisers are asking people to submit their own photographs to a competition Capture Liverpool and take part in a street photography weekend on 10 to 11 June.
"Everybody's a photographer today," Mr Snoddy said about the rise in use of mobile phones to take photographs.
"Nobody would have believed 20 years ago everybody would take photographs.
"Everybody takes photographs, and everybody has a view about that.
"So what we're trying to do is bring together the community aspect alongside what we might say are the professional, disciplined, serious, committed photographers."
The festival runs from 13 May to 26 June, 2011.