LOS ANGELES , USA / BEIJING, CHINA / HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM Migrant Urbanism and the Co-Production of Places

For the first time in history, the human race has become urban. Human migration to cities has set off a global upheaval with far-reaching implications. Our fundamental notions and institutions of identity and belonging, and of entitlements to public and private space are being challenged and re-written all over the world.
SLAB presents three research projects of im(migrant) urbanisms, the emergent spatial practices of everyday peoples carving out new possibilities in Vietnam, China, and the United States. Our ethnographic, cinematic maps explore how we might reconfigure and share urban space to be more humanistic, inclusive, and beautiful. Sidewalk City maps how public space in Ho Chi Minh City was re-negotiated over a ten-year period between neighbors, street vendors and police. Subterranean City makes visible Beijing’s underground layer of bomb shelters and basements which privately housed a million migrant workers. ethniCITY presents the complex linguistic landscape of Los Angeles, a city that allows the expression of multiple cultures in the built environment. The exhibition then moves beyond building exteriors into Bill’s Taco restaurant, an important African American space that is co-produced by Mexican- and Korean-Americans, all sharing a stake in creating places of belonging.