East Asian Youth in Public Spaces - exhibition launch

In 2016, the research centre EASt based at the Université libre de Bruxelles launched an interdisciplinary project to examine the relationship between youth and public spaces in East Asia. The objective was to understand how youths use public spaces, what their practices and strategies of appropriation are, and how public spaces shape youth identity – or reversely, how the active presence of youths in public spaces shapes the fabric of the city.

This seminar will launch a major outcome of the project: the photography exhibition ‘Asian Youth in Public Spaces’ (curators Van Minh Nguyen and Lisa Richaud) currently presented at the International Institute of Social Studies.

Other outcomes of the projects will also be introduced, including a special issue on the transformation of public spaces in late-socialism East Asia and an edited volume on how China’s youth use public spaces to create culture.

About the presenters

Pierre Petit is professor of anthropology at the Université libre de Bruxelles. His present research among highland populations in Laos addresses their current mobilities, their relation with the nation-state, and their memory of the past.

Nguyen Van Minh is PhD candidate at the Université libre de Bruxelles. His research, conducted through 'motorbike ethnography', focusses on how processes of urbanization and transition to a market economy are shaping practices of mobility and intimacy amongst youths in Ho Chi Minh City.

Vanessa Frangville is professor in China studies at Université libre de Bruxelles and director of EASt, ULB’s research centre on East Asia. Her main research deals with discourses on ethnicity and nation building in modern and contemporary China, with a special focus on cinema and 'ethnic minority' film.