🌏 About the Event
How is East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) diasporic heritage created, lived, and renewed today? Join EAST2046 and HOMELandS (University of Westminster) for an evening that blends conversation, creativity, and embodied practice.
We begin with a panel discussion featuring artists, community leaders, and researchers who are reshaping how diasporic heritage is understood and practised—across community centres, public spaces, digital platforms, and grassroots networks.
The second half of the event turns theory into practice with an embodied workshop led by Maryam Safe (Intercultural Roots) and Dam Van Huynh (Centre 151). Through body movement, participants will explore grounding, trust, and community connection. Working in small groups, you’ll co-create short movement pieces that reflect themes of diasporic heritage and collective care.
To decide together how these group works are shared, we’ll experiment with a DAO-inspired collective decision-making process—a playful way to explore how technology can support, rather than replace, real-world collaboration. Litong Zhou (706 Youth Community Space) and Nice Arntz (Self-organised grassroot communtiy actvitist) will fascilitate the process.
Why Attend?
✨ Hear from pioneering voices shaping ESEA heritage today
✨ Take part in embodied practices that connect body, space, and community
✨ Experience collective decision-making through a live DAO-inspired exercise
✨ Be part of ESEA Heritage Month: a UK-wide celebration of East and Southeast Asian communities
Speakers
- Prof Dibyesh Anandb - Deputy Vice Chancellor of University of Westminster, Co-Chair of UoW’s EDI Committee, Chair of London Higher EDI Network
- Prof Cangbai Wang – Co-director of HOMELandS, University of Westminster
- Dr Lois Liao – Festival Director, EAST2046; Research Associate, Cardiff University
- Maryam Safe – Trustee, Intercultural Roots; Lecturer, Coventry University
- Dam Van Huynh – Director, Centre 151; Performing Artist
- Litong Zhou – 706 Youth Community Space; PhD Candidate, UCL
About the Organisers
ESEA Heritage Month celebrates the histories, cultures, and contributions of East and Southeast Asian communities across the UK each September.
HOMELandS is the University of Westminster’s hub for migration, exile, languages, and spaces, fostering public-facing research and dialogue.
EAST2046 is the UK’s first large-scale East and Southeast Asian Tech × Art × Community platform, creating future-facing cultural spaces through exhibitions, performances, and collaborative experiments.