Fluid Threads—Prato

The project explores second-generation Wenzhounese youth in Prato, Italy, highlighting fluid identities shaped by transnational networks, mobility, and the negotiation of tradition and modernity.

It is an ongoing series that features Wenzhounese immigrants across the globe. We started the project in the location of Prato with its high concentration of Chinese immigrants, against the background of textile manufacturing which communes generations of Wenzhouese families. Through the lens of immigrant youth, it questions the meaning of modernity through a transnational network. A liquid modernity illustrates how belonging, community and individuals have become dynamic, adaptive processes in the increasingly globalised world. In their negotiation of inherited traditions and contemporary influences, modernity emerges not as a singular aesthetic, but as a shifting landscape of identities in motion.

The second generation of immigrant youth in this series was street casted in Prato city, personas consist of youth who take over their parents factory at young age, restaurant server who is a biology student, high school kids who have multiple personal aspirations and many more..

Approaching from an outsider’s perspective, the collaborative project by Kaiwei Duan (Photography) and Olivia Chen (Art Direction) illuminates the lives of second-generation Wenzhounese growing up in Prato, Italy. As the creators' own experience shaped within China and the hybrid realities of those raised in Italy, it generates not only a visual dialogue about identity, but also a self-reflection, uncovering how the connection between Chinese youths across the globe. The work also challenges and reconsiders stereotypical views of Chinese immigrants in Europe, inviting audiences to move beyond impressions of immigrants toward an understanding of individuality and modernity leveraging transnational networks within diasporic communities.