What does the food we eat, the people we know, the homes we live in and the places we call community have to do with cities thousands of kilometres away? 

This year’s Festival of Urbanism will explore these connections through the theme ‘Translocal’, examining how people, ideas, culture, goods and capital move between places to shape the cities and communities we live in.

Returning for its 13th year, the annual festival, presented by the University of Sydney’s Henry Halloran Urban & Regional Research Initiative, brings together leading researchers, urban thinkers, planners, architects, artists, policy makers and community advocates to ask how our cities are being transformed by increasingly interconnected lives.

From the 6-11 September, a free program of walking tours, panel discussions, debates, an exhibition and film screening will explore the often-unseen connections between local places and global forces.

“Our cities may feel local, but our lives rarely are,” said Professor Nicole Gurran, Director of the Henry Halloran Urban & Regional Research Initiative.

“The people we connect with, the food we eat, the ideas we share and the places we come from can tie our everyday lives to communities and histories far beyond our immediate neighbourhoods."

The festival will explore these connections - from the legacies of colonisation and environmental change to contemporary migration, cultural diversity, technology and the movement of people and knowledge.

For audiences, the theme can be found in familiar aspects of everyday urban life: the neighbourhood restaurant serving food from another country, family and friendship networks spanning continents, homes shaped by migration and housing markets, cultural practices carried between generations, and the digital connections increasingly allowing people to live locally while remaining connected globally.

Professor Gurran says the festival is an opportunity to look at urban life through a broader lens.

“Cities are not isolated places. They are constantly being made and remade through relationships with other places - sometimes across the street, sometimes across an ocean. 

“This year’s Festival of Urbanism invites us to see those connections and think about what they mean for the future of cities.”

The Chau Chak Wing Musuem will host a series of events with Festival highlights including:

• Walking tours of Cabramatta and ‘Little India’ in Harris Park, exploring the ‘Translocal’ stories of culture, food and community

• Panel discussions on First Nations design and innovation, mobility and migration, global data centres, housing an infrastructure and multiculturalism

• Australian premier screening of Mother City