MCYS ESRC Festival of Social Sciences 2017

The two events will focus on exploring identity through creative design, and exploring the potential, possibilities, barriers, compromises and future interventions for shared multi-use urban spaces and BMX and skateboard cultures.

The first of the two sessions: Identi-Tee: Exploring identity through creative design, will bring together young asylum seekers, academics and practitioners from the national charity – the Children’s Society for a creative arts event exploring the experiences of young people seeking asylum in Manchester. Academics from the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies (MCYS) and the Manchester Fashion Institute will provide an interactive workshop to enable this group of young people to reflect on, and articulate, their current, past and future selves as a means of generating knowledge around the lived experiences of young refugees. We seek to do this by supporting the young people to explore identity through clothing. Through the course of the workshop, the young people will design their own t-shirts.

The second of the two sessions: Meanings and Feelings of the ‘Street’: BMX and Skateboarding Shared and Multi-Use of Urban Space, will bring together academics, policy makers, industry figures, architects and exponents of skateboard and BMX for a multi-format session exploring the nature of ‘street’ BMX and skateboard culture, potentials, barriers and solutions for shared multiuse urban space.