EAST2046 festival will take place across London from August 16th-24th, reimagining the future from an East and Southeast Asian perspective.
It is a future‐focused cultural festival blending art, community and technology from the perspective of East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) communities. The goal is to look to a future from an ESEA perspective, imagining how technology can positively impact our lives and society.
East2046 director Lois Liao explains that “people often think of technology in a cold way, but we’re thinking about it more human centres, something thing that we coexist with and work with.”
While technology plays a key role in this future-focused festival, it is only one part of it. As well as digital art and technology workshops there is also documentary and movie screenings, city walks, parties, tea-tasting, and more. In total, there will be around 20 different events taking place across the festival. Wanting to make technology accessible, there will also be AI workshops for the general public run by Fellou.
It will take place across nine days from August 16th until August 24th.
To fit everything in, instead of one location EAST2046 will be a collection of events spread across London. Liao explained that this decentralised nature helps fulfil the missions of EAST2046.
She says, “We have a main event, then a decentralised series of events, discussions, and academic talks. These are often in public space events. They are really important for us for three reasons. The first is to focus on migrant spaces such as Chinese takeaways, to rethink and remake these spaces. The second reason is to focus on the ‘right to the city’. Often smaller organisations struggle to find space to run events, we want to be an umbrella platform to allow these smaller organisations to hold events. The third reason is to engage with the public and engage with public issues. For example, a walking tour will look at issues such as gentrification.”
The main draw is an all-day launch party on August 17th at Fire nightclub under the Vauxhall Bridge in South London. During the day there will be academic discussions, intercultural dialogues, art exhibitions, and even a cybernetic tarot reading. In the evening, a DJ set will transform the space into a true party.
The festival is organised by EAST2046, a UK-based social enterprise uniting academics, tech-industry, artists, and the East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) communities. They are rooted in the real experiences of ESEA diasporas worldwide. This includes traditional grassroot communities such as 706 Youth Space and internet-based community building tools such as Social Layer, Way to AGI and SmallWod.
Liao explained: “The idea only came in April this year, it was put together really quickly. It’s only because we got so many partners, people who have similar visions about East and Southeast Asian community, that we have been able to put this together. We want to imagine what the future looks like for our community from lots of different perspectives.”
She adds, “The central theme is to imagine the future from ESEA perspective, merging technology, art, and culture.”
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