Last night Barbora attended Pecha Kucha Night #13 at the Vogue Theatre. This afternoon we had a quick chat about her experience.
Was this your first Pecha Kucha night?
Barbora: This was my first Pecha Kucha night, and it certainly won’t be my last. I was really impressed and it totally exceeded my expectations.
What did you expect?
Barbora: I wasn’t sure what to expect! I didn’t realize that so many people show up for this event and it has an almost a…cult-like following and a lot of people I spoke to in the line while we were waiting to get in had been to multiple pecha kuchas. It’s totally a culture.
So I guess you hadn’t experienced the Pecha Kucha style before. What do you think of it?
Barbora: It was really interesting and completely new to me. It was so fast and fun, and I was amazed at how disciplined the presenters were with staying within their time. It’s a format that works really well.
What was your favourite presentation?
Barbora: There were a two that really stood out for me. I really liked the presentation by Amanda Gibbs, Director of Audience Engagement at the Museum of Vancouver (who is also presenting next week at Interesting Vancouver), about the role that the Museum can play in the community. She talked about it as holding up a mirror to our city and that it’s not just about looking at artifacts – the Museum is a place for community-building and interaction and dialogue. I’d never thought of museums in that way before. I also really enjoyed Brendan Meadows’ presentation. He’s an international photographer, and his images were just stunning. It was interesting to see a photographer narrate images that are normally just presented without comment.
Did you see anything that you hadn’t known before about Vancouver?
Barbora: Yes! Quite a few things! Miriam Steinberg talked about the In the House Festival, and I’d never heard of that before. It’s an organization that does all sorts of music, dance, and theatre productions inside people’s houses, and they’ve done over two hundred of them over the last few years. I’d love to go to one. And I also heard about pop-up art by Here Is Now (presented by Victor Wang), and I really want to go to that too.
Do you feel like you learned a lot more about Vancouver?
Barbora: You know, I definitely did. And I think that Vancouverites often complain about how there isn’t enough culture in the city and, you know, in comparison, there’s all these really exciting things happening in other metropolitan cities like New York and London but I think we just need to look a little deeper. There is so much going on in our city and you just have to look for it.
There really is.
Barbora: Yes! And I’m really excited about my foray into Pecha Kucha nights. There’s another one happening in Coquitlam in November, and I’m looking forward to going to that one.