PechaKucha Night, now in over 700 cities, was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.
For the "City Focus" this week we head to the city of Chattanooga. This week will mark its PechaKucha Night Vol. 16, to be held on "lucky" Friday, December 13. You'll find more details, as well as the poster and full list of presenters, on the official event page.
For last week's PechaKucha Night Vol. 109 in Tokyo, we had a bit of a Christmas theme going throughout the night and the whole event was kicked off by PechaKucha co-founder Mark Dytham's presentation on Christmas trees, "Yuletide Shrubbery."
One way to see it: Lana Bergmann is 50 ft. tall, and terrorizes the citizens of Japan on a daily basis. Another way to look at it is that she's just misunderstood. Japan's infrastructure, architecture, and culture occassionally clashes with her height. Here Lana discusses the difficulties of being a tall woman in country statistically on the shorter side.
Courtney Lawrence was taught a valuable lesson by her sister, that she can learn something from everybody. Everybody is her teacher. Her life changed dramatically from that point on. She now works as a consumer insight consultant and teaches businesses the valuable lesson that she learned.
"Presentation of the Day" on December 12, 2013.
When the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima, people's shadows were permanently scorched in to their surroundings. Rikako Nagashima and her team contacted 23 survivors and took copies of their shadows. They then placed these shadows around Hiroshima as a memorial and to spread awareness of what happened. From Peace Shadow Project's website we can see where these survivors were, hear their stories, and leave them a personal message. (in Japanese with English subtitles)
"Presentation of the Day" on December 11, 2013.
Luis Urculo discovered that he is interested in not the wholes, but the parts that make up the wholes. He created an atlas of destruction, where he has compiled a collection of pictures of buildings that have been destroyed. He then tried to reproduce their destruction using everyday objects.
"Presentation of the Day" on December 10, 2013.
Humans unconsciously seek connection with the natural world. Viewing nature has many benefits. Mark Petrick will explain them as well as the different ways designers use the concept of biophilic engagement in their work today.
"Presentation of the Day" on December 9, 2013.