Through Our Lens: Documenting Places That Matter

Supported by the European Union under the BRIDGE programme, Through Our Lens was a participatory urban documentation campaign led by Doh Eain’s Young City Shapers (YCS). The initiative invited young people to document everyday urban spaces carrying personal, cultural, or emotional significance across Myanmar’s evolving towns and cities. Participants produced photographic essays and reflective personal narratives organised around two core themes: informal green corners (neighbourhood parks, community gardens, and shaded streetscapes) and everyday spaces of belonging (historic markets, tea shops, book streets, and heritage buildings). Alongside building practical skills in visual documentation and creative storytelling, the campaign curated submissions into a permanent digital collective archive and a public social media series. Through Our Lens establishes an authentic, youth-led repository of urban memory, demonstrating how young residents experience, value, and claim ownership of their local built environment.