Exhibitions are a core element of AspirE’s approach to understanding and communicating research findings. They turn research findings into multisensory encounters, bringing the voices and experiences of migrants to diverse audiences through film, photography, and storytelling.
At the heart of this core element lies an innovative online exhibition created by ISCTE, complemented by a series of onsite exhibitions in Asia and Europe that extend this dialogue across borders.
Hosted by ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon, AspirE's online exhibition "Asian lives in Europe : a visual journey" brings together the visual and narrative aspects of the AspirE project into a permanent digital space. Designed as a lasting legacy, it ensures that the stories, images, and reflections collected throughout the project remain accessible to audiences worldwide, long after the onsite exhibition in Lisbon has closed.
🔗 Explore the online exhibition: https://asianlivesineurope.iscte-iul.pt/
In this exhibit, the personal stories of Asian migrants living in Portugal are narrated through the objects, photographs, and memories they chose to share. These narratives speak of belonging, work, love, and everyday life, revealing how migration is experienced not only as movement across borders but as a continual negotiation of identity and home.
The exhibition also presents a curated selection of video diaries produced during the AspirE fieldwork in eleven countries. Through these self-recorded entries, participants reflect on their evolving aspirations and emotions over time. Because privacy protocols prevented them from appearing on camera, they turned the lens toward “avatar” objects or sceneries, potentially symbolising their emotional state or sense of self.
Patterns emerge in AspirE’s 284 video diaries. Certain recurring symbols, gestures, and textures suggest how people imagine and reimagine migration when the self must be seen through things, spaces, and sounds. The online exhibition offers visitors a chance to explore these “catalogues of avatars” and discover the subtle languages of migration: a hand-drawn map, a fading photograph, a household tool, or a piece of landscape that carries memories and meanings.
By bringing together these stories, videos, and symbolic objects, "Asian Lives in Europe" bridges research and art, emotion and analysis, Asia and Europe. It invites every visitor, scholars, policymakers, students, and the general public alike, to engage with the human side of migration.
From 19 to 31 August 2025, the exhibition "STUCK IN TRANSIT: Isan Lives in Motion" was held at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) in collaboration with the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia at Mahidol University. The exhibition invited audiences to explore migration from Thailand’s Isan region through a rich mixture of personal objects, photographs, news articles, songs, and video diaries from the AspirE project and a trailer from The Isaan Record's latest documentary "Blood Berries| หมากไม้".
While the event offered a broad cultural and historical panorama of agrarian transition, seasonal work abroad (e.g., wild‑berry picking in Finland), and economic change, the contribution of AspirE’s research added a distinctive lens on transnational migration and lived experiences. Many of the visual and narrative materials centred on how individuals from Isan navigate aspiration, mobility, and belonging over time.
Held bilingually in Thai and English, the exhibition also featured a seminar and roundtable discussions to engage diverse audiences and foster public dialogue around migration, identity, and culture.
On 20 September 2025, at the FA Theatre of Khon Kaen University’s Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, more than 300 people gathered for a powerful screening of "Blood Berries | หมากไม้", documenting the lives of Isan workers in the Nordic berry‑picking industry.
The evening began with an immersive “boarding‑gate” simulation inviting attendees to follow the migrant journey to the berry forests of Finland and Sweden. Outside the theatre, a curated exhibition displayed the personal items of migrant workers such as berry rakes, raincoats, rubber boots, offering a tactile, emotional connection to lives frequently hidden behind migration statistics.
Following the documentary screening, a panel discussion entitled “The Path of Berries: Behind the Scenes of Blood Berries | หมากไม้” brought together a former berry‑picker, a migration scholar, and a member of the film’s production team to reflect on the structural vulnerabilities and lived realities of Isan labour migration.
Since this event, "Blood Berries | หมากไม้" has also been screened at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT), Southeast Asia’s oldest and largest press club, in a session featuring the film’s director, Hathairat Phaholtap, and the Finnish Ambassador to Thailand, moderated by the BBC South‑East Asia correspondent. The documentary is now touring Europe: its first European screening took place in Helsinki on 30 October 2025, with upcoming showings scheduled in Brussels during the final conference on 12 December 2025, Frankfurt, and potentially Tampere, Finland.
Inaugurated on 24 October 2025, the onsite exhibition “Asian Lives in Europe: a visual journey" is open at ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon (Building 4, Floor 2) until 9 January 2026. It will be moved to the Macau Scientific and Cultural Centre (Lisbon, Portugal) in March 2026.
The exhibition transforms AspirE’s research into an immersive and physical experience, inviting visitors to engage directly with the human stories behind migration. The testimonies of Asian migrants living in Portugal lie at its heart: Jayma (Philippines), Kamal (Nepal), Kim (Vietnam), Sammi (China), and Reina & Tatsuo (Japan), who shared their experiences through cherished objects and photographs. Far from being research subjects, these exhibit participants are the authors of their narratives and the ones who decided how to present their lives, memories, and emotions to the public.
Complementing these personal stories, the exhibition features panels on the “Catalogue of Avatars”, a visual exploration of the symbolic objects that participants across 11 countries filmed in place of themselves. These panels reveal recurring themes and poetic interpretations of how emotions and aspirations are expressed when identity is seen through things, spaces, and landscapes.
The inaugural event of the exhibition concluded with the premiere of the documentary "Songs of Leaving", directed by Amaya Sumpsi Langreo, a 37-minute film based on the video diary collection. Through its layered storytelling and visual intimacy, the documentary extends AspirE’s mission to bridge research and art, bringing the emotional dimensions of migration to new audiences through film festivals, cultural venues, and educational platforms.
The Brussels exhibition will be inaugurated on 12 December 2025 and will recreate the key elements of the exhibitions previously held in Thailand, Portugal, and online. Central to the display will be the video diaries catalogue, showcasing the carefully curated “avatar objects”.
Visitors are welcome to attend the screenings of the documentaries "Blood Berries | หมากไม้" and "Songs of Leaving", offering immersive narratives of migration journeys, emotional landscapes, and the lived realities of migrants in Asia and Europe.
In addition, the exhibition will feature a presentation of the AspirE’s comic book in progress, written and illustrated by Jimmeh Aitch. This project translates selected migration stories into visual narratives, highlighting personal experiences and (non-)migration motivations. The presentation will guide audiences through the process of transforming research data into a comic format, providing insights into how creative storytelling can make migrants’ experiences more accessible to a broader public.
Designed to combine visual, cinematic, and narrative forms, the Brussels exhibition continues AspirE’s mission to humanise migration research, fostering engagement, empathy, and reflection in a shared public space.
