Join us for this event hosted by the HOMELandS Centre at the University of Westminster in collaboration with EAST2046, as part of the East and South East Asian (ESEA) Heritage Month.
We begin with a panel discussion featuring researchers, artists, and community leaders on how ESEA diasporic heritage is created, lived and renewed in public spaces. The second half is a participatory workshop led by panellists and facilitators who are experienced in movement and/or community building. Through embodied movements, participants will explore grounding, trust, and community connection, then co-create short group pieces. A DAO-inspired process will guide collective decision-making on how to share these works.
Programme
- 5.30pm Opening address (Professor Dibyesh Anand, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University of Westminster; Co-Chair, University's EDI Committee; Chair, London Higher Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Network)
- 5.40pm Welcome (Professor Cangbai Wang, Co-Director of HOMELandS)
- 5.45pm Panel discussion (chaired by Dr. Lois Liao, Co-Founder of EAST 2046)
- Maryam Safe (Trustee, Intercultural Roots; Lecturer, Coventry University)
- Dam Van Huynh (Director, Centre 151; Performing Artist)
- Litong Zhou (Representative, 706 Youth Community Space; PhD Candidate in Philosophy of Technology, UCL)
- 6.45pm Participatory workshop: Making decisions via embodied practice and live DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation)
- 7.15pm Q&A
- 7.30pm Concluding remarks
The event is open to the public and free to attend but registration is required.
This event is sponsored by ‘Westminster Programme for Enhancing Inclusion, Belonging and Sustainable Development’.
About ESEA Heritage Month
ESEA Heritage Month takes place every September across the UK to celebrate the histories, cultures, and contributions of East and Southeast Asian communities. It provides a vital platform for visibility and recognition, showcasing everything from food and film to art, music, and community organising. The month highlights the diversity within ESEA identities while also creating shared space for reflection, solidarity, and future-making. This event contributes to the programme by focusing on how diasporic heritage is not only remembered but actively lived—through movement, creativity, and collective practice.
About the speakers
Dam Van Huynh
Dam Van Huynh, originally from Southern Vietnam, is a UK-based dancer and choreographer who founded Van Huynh Company in 2008. A former child refugee raised in the USA, he became Director of Centre 151 in Hackney in 2016. The Vietnamese-led centre supports communities from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and beyond, offering space for cultural exchange, performance, wellbeing, and festivals that celebrate Southeast Asian heritage.
Dr Lois Liao
Dr Lois Liao is Co-Founder and Festival Director of EAST2046, the UK’s first large-scale East and Southeast Asian Tech × Art × Community platform. It is a future-facing cultural festival and collective that reimagines how technology, art, and identity intersect when shaped by ESEA communities. A cross-disciplinary researcher at Cardiff University (PhD UCL; Postdoc LSE), she bridges technology and the humanities to explore cities, communities, and cultural innovation.
Dr Maryam Safe
Dr. Maryam Safe is a trustee of Intercultural Roots, a UK-based charity that brings together artists, practitioners, and communities from different cultural backgrounds through embodied and performative practices. It focuses on how body-based approaches—such as movement, performance, and somatic practices—can support wellbeing, cultural exchange, and social change.
Cangbai Wang
Cangbai Wang is Professor Migration, Heritage and Language. He is the author of Museum Representations of Chinese Diasporas: Migration Histories and the Cultural Heritage of the Homeland (2020) and the co-editor of Negotiating Identities, Language and Migration in Global London: Bridging Borders, Creating Spaces (2024). He is the founder and co-director of HOMELandS (Hub on Migration, Exile, Languages and Spaces) at the University of Westminster, a research centre dedicated to promoting interdisciplinary research into migration, diasporas, and transnational connections.
Litong Zhou
Litong Zhou is lead organiser of the 706 Virtual Reality Group, a journalist and researcher at Uncommons, and a PhD candidate in philosophy of technology. She has long engaged with youth communities, co-living collectives, and Web3 institutions in China, critically reflecting on community-building. 706 Youth Community, originating in Beijing, is now one of the largest youth-led networks in the Chinese-speaking world, with branches across Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
