Pecha Kucha Night back for round two

 Following the resounding success of the first Pecha Kucha night held in July 2011, the second night will take place on 23 October 2011 at the Warehouse Project, Maradana as done so previously.

The event which was initiated to fuel interaction between people in creative industries is set to be held four times a year. Patented by Kelin Dytham Architecture in Tokyo, Pecha Kucha which is derived from Japanese term meaning chatter, now takes place in more than 440 cities in the world.

The link between all these events is not only the title but also the structure of the event. The evening will include presentations by various young creative people who haven’t been in the industry for very long, who will have to stand up and talk about what they do with only 20 images in their presentation and 20 seconds to speak per image.

The Saskia Fernando Gallery saw the potential in this event when approached by the organisers of Pecha Kucha Kyoto in early 2011. With an existing framework and branding, the event gave the gallery the opportunity to link people from various fields on four evenings of the year and in the process, change the way people think about contemporary art and design in Sri Lanka.

“So what happens at Pecha Kucha Night? You grab a drink, sit down and watch people talk about what they do as quickly as they can during the seven minutes allocated to them. The fun in this is that the presentation stops with just enough time not for you to start finding it monotonous and with the eight presenters, you can’t wait for the Q and A to start. We give you a 15 minute interval and then one hour at the end to stay and meet people from similar fields or simply likeminded creative sorts. You might even be inspired to sign up as a presenter for the next round!” explained team coordinator of Pecha Kucha Colombo and Director of the Saskia Fernando Gallery Saskia Fernando.

The line-up for the first event included photographers, designers, artists and bloggers and this time around, the event will feature a doctor and an entrepreneur in the line-up of eight presenters. Tickets will be priced at Rs.100 and will be available at the door on the evening itself. During and after the presentations, the audience will have the opportunity to speak to the presenters and see some of their work firsthand.

Fernando explained that they decided to take on this event in order to create a platform that would connect people in the fields of advertising, art, architecture and other similar occupations. She added that the success of the first Pecha Kucha night inspired the Gallery in a larger sense, giving them the confidence to move into newer areas such as the exhibition of limited edition posters that was held a month back.

“It would be ideal to hold the event outside Colombo,” Saskia Fernando said enthusiastically when asked about moving the event’s location. “But we are concerned about if wee would be able to draw the crowd that we do by hosting it in Colombo but we are keen on moving it to the North and South in the second year after we build it up in Colombo and it grows in size.” She added that the event this time around will be trilingual with presentations delivered in English, Sinhala and Tamil.

Applications to be presenters at Pecha Kucha are accepted all year round and in fact 50 per cent of the presenters at the second event approached the gallery after the success of the first and Fernando encouraged more people to apply.

For more information on Pecha Kucha Colombo visit their website pechakuchacolombo.com, visit the Facebook page or connect to the event coordinators via Twitter.