Being There

Pecha Kucha Night, the 20 slides/20 sec­onds ideas extrav­a­ganza takes place at 8 pm tonight at the Arts Court the­atre in Ottawa.

The first Pecha Kucha Ottawa was a big suc­cess.  The audi­ence was sit­ting in the aisles, and a whole row of chairs was pulled onto the stage. Pre­sen­ters at the first Night cov­ered every­thing from per­for­mance art to bio­mimicry. The sec­ond edi­tion promises more of the same enthu­si­asm and diverse entertainment.

What is Pecha Kucha Night?  What’s with the weird name?

PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in Feb­ru­ary 2003 as an event for young design­ers to meet, net­work, and show their work in pub­lic. It has turned into a mas­sive cel­e­bra­tion, with events hap­pen­ing in hun­dreds of cities around the world, inspir­ing cre­atives worldwide.

Draw­ing its name from the Japan­ese term for the sound of “chit chat”, it rests on a pre­sen­ta­tion for­mat that is based on a sim­ple idea: 20 images x 20 sec­onds. It’s a for­mat that makes pre­sen­ta­tions con­cise, and keeps things mov­ing at a rapid pace.

Isn’t that just like a TED talk? Yes, it is, but shorter and you have to make the snazzy lit­tle video yourself.

Tonight I will present “Liv­ing City,” a 6:40 slideshow about my work with Jane’s Walk Ottawa. My pre­sen­ta­tion draws from my ongo­ing “Influx” photo project  about immi­gra­tion, over­suc­ces, and child­hood in Chi­na­town. Come to Pecha Kucha tonight and you’ll get a (very) con­densed his­tory of the urban thinker Jane Jacobs, an intro­duc­tion to Jane’s Walk Ottawa, and an idea of what I am work­ing on.

Event Details:

March 31st (today) 8:00 pm to 11:39 pm

FREE!

Arts Court The­atre and Studio