Duration: 3 days
Client: Urban Knowledge Collective
Partners: Placeit, AreWeEurope,
Project Lead: Josef Adler
Date: 2021
In 2021, students of the Master in Urban Studies at VUB/ULB Brussels organised Imagining Urban Publics, a multi-city workshop and the first international learning platform of the Urban Knowledge Collective. Originally planned as a physical excursion, the exchange was developed into a hybrid experience in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Over three days, together with partners including Placeit and AreWeEurope around 100 participants from across the world explored the question: how is urbanity performed, negotiated and transformed — and how can we imagine and create inclusive and caring public spaces for all?
Travel
Although the destination was hybrid rather than physical, the gathering invited participants into a shared learning journey across diverse urban contexts.
Through talks, embodied exercises, audio-guided walks, film screenings, workshops, games and discussions, participants explored how public space is lived, claimed, contested and transformed. The programme examined how learning, exchange and encounter can take place across great distances, while still creating a sense of shared presence and collective inquiry.
Translate
Imagining Urban Publics approached public space not as a fixed category, but as something continuously performed, negotiated and reshaped. By weaving together diverse formats, perspectives and contexts, the workshop helped participants question public–private boundaries and reflect on who has access to public space, who feels invited, and who is excluded. The hybrid format itself became part of this translation process: it showed how methods of urban learning can be adapted when physical travel is not possible, while still enabling meaningful exchange between people and places.
Transform
The workshop supported participants in imagining more inclusive and caring public spaces. It created a space to connect international perspectives, test alternative learning formats and develop a shared vocabulary around publicness, care and urban transformation.
