Viva Brighton April 2015 Issue #26

its and bobs
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Pecha Kucha ‘Talent Pool’
Visual mini-talks from Brighton creatives
In February we
were delighted
to be invited by
the artist and
illustrator Zara
Wood, ‘Woody’, to
co-curate a Pecha
Kucha night with
her, which will be
taking place at the
Velo Café on the
evening of May 7th.
Woody is no stranger to the format, having first
given a PK talk at the ICA in London, back
in 2003, and then having been invited by its
originators, architect partners Astrid Klein and
Mark Dytham, to do a presentation at one of
their monthly events at Superdeluxe in Tokyo,
in 2007.
“Pecha Kucha was started up by Astrid and
Mark to give a platform to designers and other
creative people to offer a short presentation
of their work,” she explains. “Participants are
asked to prepare a slideshow of twenty carefully
chosen images, which are each shown for
twenty seconds, during which they are expected
to explain what the audience is seeing. There
is no pause between slides, so it’s engaging and
full of energy: each presenter’s slot lasts a total
of just six minutes and forty seconds.”
Pecha Kucha means ‘chit chat’ in Japanese, and
Astrid and Mark have kept arm’s-length control
of the format since starting it up in 2003. In the
twelve years since the first presentation, there
have been events in over 800 cities worldwide,
including a number in Brighton. Alongside
the regular talk nights,
there are the one-off
events like this one,
which is ‘powered by
Pecha Kucha’.
There is often a theme
to the evenings: we
have called this event
‘Talent Pool’, and its
purpose is to showcase
the range of the creative
talent that makes Brighton Brighton. The
line-up includes Open Market sign designer
Lucy Williams, bonfire sculptor Keith Pettit,
creative competition ‘comper’ Di Coke, Royal
Pavilion historian Alexandra Loske, synesthetic
Instagram star Philippa Stanton, ‘Collector’s
Edition’ author and art director Stuart Tolley,
glass-artist Su Wilson, Kid-ethic art director
and book-cover designer Mark Swan, and
the MakerClub founders on Brighton’s new
MakerLab. There will also be a yet-to-beconfirmed
locally based photographer.
“An exciting line-up in an exciting regenerated
area of Brighton at the Velo café bar,”
says Woody, “and the audience will get the
chance to mingle with the participants after the
presentations. I expect they’ll have a lot to talk
about.”
Alex Leith
Talent Pool, powered by Pecha Kucha, at the
Velo Café on May 7th, will be hosted by Woody
and Viva’s Alex Leith. Doors open 6.30pm with
the talks running, with a break, between 7pm-
9pm. Early-bird tickets £5 from zarawood.com
or vivabrighton.com.
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