Placemaking Week Europe 2026

Creating better cities together.

11:45am CEST

(Exploring) Identity: Inner Landscapes and Collective Imaginaries

Friday September 25, 2026 11:45am - 1:00pm CEST

This interactive session delves into the role of identity in placemaking. It explores how we as individuals and collectives formulate imaginaries: the stories and visions we build to make sense of who we are, how we relate to others, and how we see the world. The session provides an open and creative space for us to imagine our inner landscapes, characterisations of the self and interactions with others as we form assemblages. Through a series of short exercises, we will explore how imagining our identities can be empowering, motivating, and representational, while untangling issues of power, perception, and unity when our imaginaries, and our identities, collide.
Through this session we aim to provide a means to explore identity in placemaking, exploring imaginaries as ways to address inclusion in participatory spaces and to unpack ourselves and our own capacities. To do so we will not present a formal framework but rather engage in activities that place ourselves within the assemblage, requiring us to step outside our assumptions about representation and interpret imaginaries through our feelings as participants. In the session, we will create and blend imaginaries together and reflect on our sensory experience to examine how our physical, emotional and communal sensations change when we imagine our identities.

Speakers

Samir Amin

Project Manager, Institute for Urban Excellence

Samir Amin is a Project Manager at the Institute for Urban Excellence with a background in Metropolitan Studies. His work focuses on community mobilisation, social justice, and inclusive policy co-design. He works across European research and public outreach contexts, seeking to develop... Read More →

Lenka Kuricová

Grant and project manager, Academy of Fine Arts and Design Bratislava

Lenka is an interdisciplinary curator, cultural strategist and practitioner from Slovakia working at the intersection of culture, public space and placemaking. Her work explores how cultural practice can cultivate curiosity, strengthen belonging and contribute to long-term transformation... Read More →

Mariana Binder

Senior Project Officer, Institute for Urban Excellence

Mariana Binder is an urban planner and architect from Argentina. She is a Senior Project Officer at the Institute for Urban Excellence, working across European research projects. Her work focuses on knowledge dissemination, sustainable urban development, nature-based solutions and... Read More →

Friday September 25, 2026 11:45am - 1:00pm CEST
Żyjnia / Lifery Świdnicka 2-4, 50-067 Wrocław, Poland

Building Belonging, informal community session

global Y

4:15pm CEST

Placemaking en español: building a shared digital platform

Friday September 25, 2026 4:15pm - 5:30pm CEST

Żyjnia / Lifery

Placemaking is growing across the Spanish-speaking world, from Sevilla to Miami, but knowledge, resources and networks remain fragmented across countries and continents. This session introduces ES Placemaking, a new shared space connecting Spanish-speaking practitioners, organisations and communities.

We will use the session to shape the platform together. What knowledge and experiences should circulate more widely? Which resources need to be translated, created or made easier to find? How can we connect initiatives across Europe, Latin America and beyond without losing their local specificity?

Participants will hear the initial vision for ES Placemaking, meet some of the people already contributing to it and help define its priorities, activities and forms of participation. The session is open to Spanish-speaking placemakers and allies interested in strengthening exchange across languages and regions. It will be held primarily in Spanish.

Open session hosted by Luciana Renner, Guillermo Bernal, Mili Hurtig and Ramon Marrades.

Speakers

Mili Hurtig

Consultant | Community Engagement, Gender-sensitive Planning - Participatory Governance

Luciana Renner

Director, Fundación Placemaking Mexico

Luciana Renner is the Directora Ejecutiva (Executive Director) of Fundación Placemaking México. Since February 2024, she has led both internal and external processes of the organization, working to create and strengthen strategic alliances with public and private sector organizations. Her goal is to improve the integral well-being of public spaces and foster the growth of... Read More →

Friday September 25, 2026 4:15pm - 5:30pm CEST
Żyjnia / Lifery Świdnicka 2-4, 50-067 Wrocław, Poland

Building Belonging, informal community session