Civilization: The Way We Live Now is an international photography exhibition of monumental scale, featuring over 200 original photographs by over 100 contemporary photographers from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe. Presented at the NGV Australia in collaboration with the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography, Minneapolis/New York/Paris/Lausanne and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, the exhibition explores photographic representations of life in cities and journeys through the shared experiences of life in the urban environment.

Looking at the phenomenal complexity of urban life in the twenty-first century, Civilization: The Way We Live Now reflects on the ways in which photographers have documented, and held a mirror up to, the increasingly globalised world around us. The selected works create a picture of collective life around the world and document patterns of mass behaviour.

Image Caption: Ashley Gilbertson, Australian born 1978. 1,215 American soldiers, airmen, Marines and sailors pray before a pledge of enlistment on July 4, 2008, at a massive re-enlistment ceremony at one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces in Baghdad, Iraq 2008 from the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series. Type C photograph, 69.0 x 94.0 x 5.5 cm. Courtesy of the artist © Ashley Gilbertson / VII Network