Cities that beckon

Cities that beckon

Date: Monday, 07 September 2026

Time: 5.45pm - 7:00pm

Location: Nelson Meers Foundation Auditorium, Chau Chak Wing Museum

Cities are complex and contradictory places. A city’s artistic culture rarely aligns with the planning systems, laws and institutions that shape how they're built. This tension between imaginary space and the built environment is not new, it is an embedded feature and a driving force in urban life. Cultural theorist and sociologist Nikos Papastergiadis explores the gap between how cities are officially planned and envisaged and how they're actually experienced and imagined. He will examine how arts precincts form, and the elusiveness of places that offer true conviviality. A panel of respondents explore how we find inspiration in our city, and how we design spaces that welcome all. Together they discuss how the translocal unsettles perspectives, blurring what is close at hand with the far apart, making connections between the here and there, and enabling a way to imagine the city differently.

Keynote

Nikos Papastergiadis, Honorary Professor, University of Melbourne

Panel

Dr Jessica Olivieri, Co-Artistic Director, Utp (Urban Theatre Projects) 

Zanny Begg, Australian artist-filmmaker, Director of Shoalhaven Regional Gallery 

Chaired by

Kate Goodwin, Independent Curator, Artist, Writer, Adjunct Professor, University of Sydney

Sydney Festival 7-11 September 

National events September – October 2026

Translocality describes the interconnectedness between different places and people, beyond national boundaries. The circulation of people, goods, knowledge and capital, though an ancient process, is facilitated and impacted by new technologies, bringing new opportunities and challenges for cities and regions. Increasingly important, a translocal lens highlights these deep and intersecting relationships between people and places over time – from the legacies of colonisation and environmental change to contemporary patterns of migration and cultural diversity. Through panel discussions, debates, exhibitions, and tours, and featuring thought leaders from academia, the arts, industry, and civil society, the 2026 Festival of translocal Urbanism examines and celebrates the complex social, economic and environmental connections between local and global communities.