Blue Mountains’ Chit Chat

Frequent readers of The Cloudscape will know our mandate is to celebrate all things happening along the Great Western Highway. Whether it’s design-based, crafty or simply produced with passion, we want to share the richness of living in this part of the world. Most recently, an event popped up on our radar that shares our perspective, yet celebrates it in a very different way. This was the Blue Mountains’ inaugural PechaKucha Night, held at Scenic World on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012.

Organised by the very clever Lizzy Marshall, in partnership with Scenic World, KFMmedia and Australia Public Relations, pecha kucha is the Japanese expression for “chit chat.” The format of a PechaKucha Night was devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham in 2003 as a way to discourage architects, like themselves, and other creative types from rambling on during PowerPoint presentations. The concept is super simple. Each presentation consists of 20 slides, and the presenter has 20 seconds to speak about each image. Just in case you don’t want to do the maths, that adds up to 6 minutes, 40 seconds which is short enough to guarantee a receptive audience!

So you can get a sense of how a PechaKucha Night works, KFM Media have very kindly allowed us to share 3 presentations from the PKN#1 event.

As you’ll see, a PechaKucha presentation can be about anything but the key is to use strong visual images and as Lizzy explains, “to lose yourself in your ideas, lose yourself in your slides…it’s the passion that adds vitality to the presentation.” You don’t need to be an overly confident public speaker, just comfortable enough to talk about what inspires you.

PechaKucha Nights are now held in over 500 cities worldwide. And whilst the original PechaKucha Nights had a very strong design focus, the content of the presentations have evolved enormously as the movement’s gone global. At Blue Mountains PKN#1, a dozen presentations were shared with an enthusiastic audience. Apart from the three shared above, these included an overview of the Australian contemporary art movement by Eliza Muldoon; a sneak peek at Nathan Devine’s forthcoming book, Retrash; Colin Harvey’s expose ‘Everything You Know About Computer Games Is Wrong,” and from Cara Cummings, an illuminating look at iconic Mexican artist Jose Guadalupe Posada-Calaveras.

A diverse range of presentations is only half of what makes the PechaKucha format work so well. A truly successful evening relies upon the interaction of a wholly supportive audience and as Klein and Dytham emphasise, a PechaKucha Night should be held in a space suitable for “thinking and drinking,” much like their own headquarters in Tokyo, SuperDeluxe. Whilst not as elaborate as SuperDeluxe, the Terrace Cafe at Scenic World comes well equipped and the content of Blue Mountains PKN#1 was anything but dry!

Driven by the desire to share ideas and inspiration, PechaKucha is more than just a chance for chit chat. It’s a space which energises and excites, that forges connection and discussion amongst all sorts of creative types. And in a small community like the Blue Mountains, there aren’t nearly enough opportunities to meet new people, have a laugh and hang out. It’s a simple formula but it works, which for me, sums up the elegance of PechaKucha perfectly.

Blue Mountains PechaKucha Night #2 will be held at Scenic World on Thursday, July 12th, 2012, between 6 – 10pm. If you’re interested in presenting at Blue Mountains’ PKN#2, either email Lizzy Marshall: pknbluemountains@gmail.com or visit the PechaKucha Blue Mountains page here and fill out the form. If you would like to attend rather than present; whilst the more, the merrier, RSVPs are encouraged to bookings@scenicworld.com.au

For information about future PechaKucha events in the Blue Mountains, keep an eye on their facebook page or the official PechaKucha site above.

And in the meantime, to check out presentations from other PechaKucha locations, click here. Be warned, viewing the PechaKucha homepage, can become entirely addictive…

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