City Image Heritage Preservation Programme

Overview

This programme addresses the loss of urban memory and the distortion of representation in rapidly changing cities. Through rule-based photographic action and public responsibility, CPL establishes a verifiable and preservable city image record system.
Our aim is to ensure that urban reality is documented as public heritage—traceable, reviewable, and sustainable over time.

Context

In highly urbanised and media-saturated environments, city images are frequently driven by short-term distribution logic, commercial narratives, and personal visibility. This contributes to fragmented public memory, simplified realities, and selective representation.
Many cities still lack long-term mechanisms with open rules and institutional responsibility, limiting photography’s capacity to serve public culture and historical documentation.

CPL’s long-term practice indicates that only by embedding photography within clear rules, durable commitment, and collective cooperation can city images become trusted public assets rather than temporary visual consumption.

How it Works

• City-level Calls and Actions: Organise city photography actions under open rules, focusing on urban reality, public space, and social change.
• Public Exhibition and Screening: Return images to the public through exhibitions, screenings, or civic-space display.
• City Photography Congress Mechanism: A replicable public mechanism to strengthen cross-city exchange and shared rule-making.
• Archiving and Long-term Preservation: Build structured archives to ensure continuity and verifiability of outcomes.
• Cross-city Collaboration: Expand cooperation, comparison, and shared progress through CPL’s network and “99+1” cooperation logic.

Expected Outcomes

• Number of participating cities and city institutions
• Participation in city actions and public programmes
• Volume of works and structured archival records
• Number of public presentations and civic venues
• Media and public reach under public-interest standards
• Institutional results: sustained city image mechanisms and documented rules

Participation

• Cities and Public Authorities: Provide coordination and civic support for public culture, city memory, and historical documentation.
• Cultural and Educational Institutions: Co-develop curation, research, screenings, and archive building.
• Media Organisations: Document and publish under public-interest and verification standards.
• City-based Photography Organisations: Participate under CPL rules and support cross-city collaboration.

All participation is based on open rules, accountability, non-commercial priority, and a commitment to long-term cooperation.
For partnership inquiries, please contact: cityphoto1985@gmail.com.