You think it’s something cute and furry? Well, you thought wrong! Simply put, a Pecha Kucha night is a gathering where creative professionals present their work in a casual environment, following a specific, concise, presentation form. The system was hatched in 2003 by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham for young designers to discuss their work without getting bogged down or boring the audience. The rigid format allows for only twenty slides, each with a time limit of twenty seconds. This gives the speaker roughly six minutes and forty seconds to get their points across. O.K., so what does ‘pecha kucha’ actually mean?
The Japanese word pronounced ‘peh-chak-cha’ is an onomatopoeia, similar to the term chit-chat in English (a reference to the sound people make when talking).
The event will be held for the first time in Hong Kong on Tuesday, May 27th, from 8:00-10:00 pm at Volar. Tuesday’s pecha kucha night includes several notable speakers in the design world including one of the founders of United Nude, Rem D. Koolhaas, as well as Ed Ng an interior designer from the firm AB Concepts, Teddy Lo an internationally recognized LED artist, Stanley Wong of 321 Communications and several others.
Pecha Kucha night Hong Kong
Tuesday, May 27th, 8-10 pm
Volar
38-44 D’Aguilar Street, Central
RSVP to Maggie Ma at 2522-8688 or [email protected]
For more information check out the official Pecha Kucha page!
Hi I’m a design student currently studying in the states and grew up in Hong Kong, this was my first time attending a designer’s event in hk and was wondering if it was normal for designer events to be flooded with non designers and people who seemed absolutely uninterested in designer events.
I attended pechakucha with an intention of seeing some really spectacular work by people and having everyone appreciating the work and discussing the work but I was extremely disapointed by the lack of respect and interest from over half the people there, and the designers i saw seemed to lack the enthusiasm and interest that is currently driving my study, I was wondering if you knew much about the design culture and public image of designers presiding in HK
Hi Albert,
I stayed for the first half of Pecha Kucha night. I was all the way at the front and was able to hear the presenters clearly. I think the problem with the background noise started because the turnout was so good! With so many people attending, it was difficult to see the slides and hear the speakers. Also, some of the presenters felt uncomfortable being on stage, so this left the presentation without a direct focus. People seemed like they started talking more once there wasn’t someone on stage. For the first time, I thought it was an amazing turnout. Years ago, you would only have had a small handful of people showing up.
Perhaps some of the people wandered in from Lan Kwai Fong, I don’t know. I did recognize many faces from other design events in H.K.
Even though some of the speakers weren’t very captivating it’s an important first step. To hear people talking about their creative work was interesting for me, it’s like having a mentor to ask questions to about a certain industry. Normally people would never have this kind of access to top creative individuals.
I’ll be posting more about the night in a subsequent post.
Thanks!
Where was Rem Koolhaas on Tuesday as promised in the flyer?
Also the smoking at this event was toxic. I had to leave to get air. What a shame.
Per the flyer:
“The event will be held for the first time in Hong Kong on Tuesday, May 27th, from 8:00-10:00 pm at Volar. Tuesday’s pecha kucha night includes several notable speakers in the design world including one of the founders of United Nude, Rem D. Koolhaas, as well as Ed Ng an interior designer from the firm AB Concepts, Teddy Lo an internationally recognized LED artist, Stanley Wong of 321 Communications and several others.
REm D Koolhaas was the first speaker after the break…