As an immigrant and Asian migrant living in Europe, this research emerges from Cian-Ti Wang’s own attempts to understand how identity, belonging, and political pressure are experienced and managed. Through this project, Wang seeks to reflect on her own position while engaging with the experiences of other second- and third-generation migrants. Rather than aiming to define a stable identity, the research asks how feelings of belonging, exclusion, comfort, and fear are continuously shaped by social, political, and cultural conditions.
This research examines how food shapes everyday experiences of belonging within migrant communities in European cities. Food is something everyone needs, but for migrants it can carry additional meanings. What people cook, eat, or share can express comfort, memory, and a sense of home.
Through the making of short films and the organization of shared meals, as well as through conversations that generate questions and responses, the project explores how food becomes a site where identity and visibility are shaped and contested. It focuses on areas around major train stations in cities such as Antwerp and Rotterdam, where migrant restaurants, grocery shops, and social life are often concentrated.
By focusing on ordinary actions such as cooking, eating, and gathering together, the research investigates how social and political conditions are lived in everyday life, making complex issues around migration, fear, and belonging accessible through familiar experiences.
