Deadlines and creativity hardly mix. Prod creative people about their work and they can keep you up all night. But, of course, that can’t mean their ideas remain unexpressed. Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham Architecture devised a way to tackle this.
They invented a quirky presentation format that provides a platform for creativity and experimentation, while staying crisp as crisp could ever be. Thus came about PechaKucha Nights — drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of conversation.
Klein and Dytham held the first one in Tokyo in their gallery cum lounge cum bar cum club cum creative kitchen — SuperDeluxe — in February 2003. It was just an informal fun gathering of architects. It caught on so well that now it spans 290 cities across the globe, and is a floor for all creative people to share their ideas, work, thoughts, or just about anything, as long as they stick to the PechaKucha format. The speakers must share their ideas along 20 slides with 20 seconds allotted for each presenter.
Each city has its organisers who get into a free ‘PechaKucha Night Handshake Agreement’, which, founders say, is to ensure that there is just one event series per city. The events are just for content and not profit and are trademarked.
Centre for Knowledge Studies (CKS), a research and design practice that works in the area of media and technology, hosts it in India with Venkataramanan Associates, the other prime signatory of the concept. CKS has been organising PechaKucha Nights for the last four years in Delhi and Bangalore. “It mainly focuses on design-oriented people,” says design researcher with CKS, Nehal Shah who coordinated the recent event.
‘Indian Innovation stories’ was the theme of the evening at Jaaga on Rhenius Street. It had eight speakers: Gaurav Mishra of 2020Social, Rajiv Mathew of Thoughtworks, Lalit Bhise of Mobisy, Sunil Maheshwari of Mango Techno, R Sundar Rajan of Just Books, Vijay Pamarathi of India 1st, Chethan Elvis of Mahiti and Deepak Menon of India Water Portal. They spoke of ways in which technology, media and social spaces innovated, while swerving from the mainstream, yet tapping into a sustainable user base. A few of them found it tough to keep up with the timed slides. The hosts graciously bent the rule once to give a hurried and harried speaker an extra minute.
The PKN founders insist on the fun element. They says in their website: “PechaKucha Nights are mostly held in fun spaces with a bar similar to the home of PechaKucha Night — SuperDeluxe — which is a space for thinking and drinking. PechaKucha Nights have been held in bars, restaurants, clubs, beer gardens, homes, studios, universities, churches, prisons (disused), beaches, swimming pools, even a quarry.”
CKS hosts around four such events in a year — the minimum specified for a city to qualify as active. Shah says they pick the theme based on what they spot over the quarter. The next Night is scheduled for April, and the theme is likely to be local information sources or the active visual culture. These Nights, she says, have drawn an enthusiastic reception with experts writing to them for a chance to present their work.
PechaKucha Nights respond to the need for public spaces where people can share their work in a relaxed way, and the best presentations, the founders says, are those that uncover the unexpected — talent and ideas.
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