Governing Urban Diversity Conference
Following four years of research in 14 cities, DIVERCITIES concluded with the Governing Urban Diversity Conference attended by international researchers, policymakers and advisors. My role was to coordinate the conference from administrative tasks to overseeing the creative elements including presentations, marketing, and event coordination through to photographic documentation and commissioning a highlights video.
Field trips
The conference program kicked-off with four separate tours of Rotterdam given by informed locals. Conference attendees could choose from a harbour tour, two walking tours into either the city’s south or west, or take in Rotterdam’s daring architecture by bus.
Keynotes & workshop sessions
Over two days, four keynote speakers — Paul Scheffer, Janet Smith, Ümit Kiziltan and Ruth Fincher — presented their research in dynamic presentations that challenged perceptions. In between the keynote addresses workshop sessions considered DIVERCITIES research and results in more depth and interactively.
Research stories
As a way to show to conference attendees the projects history, a number of small presentations were installed throughout the public spaces of the conference building: a series of 14 posters used photography to portray research areas; a slideshow documented field trips, consortium meetings, dinners and conferencees; and a video created by the Warsaw team indicated that city’s research. The slideshow was dedicated to Ronald van Kempen, the project’s esteemed leader who we lost in the final year of DIVERCITIES.
Mini-Diversity Festival
At the end of the first day of keynotes, workshops and discussions, focus turned to a more casual format, the Mini-Diversity Festival. We invited local initiatives from the Rotterdam case study area who took part in the research to present, perform and show their work in a social environment that allowed academics, policymakers, entrepreneurs and creatives to interact with each other in friendly setting. Music, rap, art, fashion and a spoken word performance in an all-inclusive and relaxed environment. We even had an artist on hand to draw caricatures of attendees.
Highlights video
Hoyinck Photography documented the conference, mini-festival and field trips along with filming interviews with key researchers. The resulting film captured the heart and soul of the conference creating the perfect end.
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