A feature by Jasmine Holt.
When you take part in a Pecha Kucha Night in Dundee, it can be difficult not to become swept up in it. You could meet some of the most interesting people who you’ve ever come across, and not only meet them, but get taken into their little corner of the world for a few minutes. You find out about their ideas, their passions, how they do what they do and how you can help. You can feel that they are a person, a real person, not just a figure head of a successful creative enterprise because they’re usually pretty nervous about speaking to this crowded room full of people.
As a creative, it’s infectious. Starting something from the ground up is difficult but people are getting involved in your city and your city thinks it’s possible. Most importantly, you can sense that everyone there is on some kind of journey. Some are at the very beginning and need help, others are dab hands in their field and are sharing their well-honed craft – but all have value and the same amount of time to tell their story.
Having just hosted our 15th PechaKucha Night in May, we enjoyed seeing both familiar faces and PKN newcomers coming along for the ride. Whether you’ve attended one or all fifteen – it will help us gain valuable insights to shape the future of these events. PechaKucha in Tokyo say that:
“Good PechaKucha presentations are the ones that uncover the unexpected – unexpected talent, unexpected ideas”.
One reason we know that speakers and attendees enjoy Pecha Kucha is the unexpected connections that they make. After running the nights in Dundee for nearly 5 years, with around 180 speakers and over 3,000 audience members, we would like to find out if taking part has had any sort of impact on our speakers or audience member’s journeys in life – whether that is personal or professional.
Your views please…
We would love to hear all about your experiences with Pecha Kucha in Dundee and if getting involved has influenced your career, your confidence or even just picking something up that has helped you at all along the way?
As such an eclectic community of talented people, we have different ways to share your thoughts, so you can either:
- Fill in the short form below and include the stories you’d like to share. This will take just a couple of minutes.
- Download this PDF and interpret it as you wish. Use your talents to cut it up, shred it and turn it into a quilt, recreate it, draw over the entire sheet, stick post-its all over it, take it to Morocco in your craft van, sell it for a camel and tweet us the transaction if you feel that it describes your journey.
- Share a photo, illustration or anything else which shows the impact that PKN Dundee has had for you.
Then just send your submissions to jasmine@creativedundee.com. We are keen to hear your feedback on Pecha Kucha Dundee ASAP as we’ll collate the information shared so far on Tuesday 19th July 2016 but please feel free to give us feedback after this date.
If you have any queries, or would like to share your thoughts in person, then please email Jasmine and you can pop into our office for a cuppa: jasmine@creativedundee.com
As always we’ll share the responses once we’ve completed the project.
We look forward to hearing from you and thanks!
Jasmine Holt is currently working with Creative Dundee before she enters the final year of her undergraduate degree in illustration at DJCAD. As storytelling is a key part of her work, she is very keen to help Creative Dundee uncover the hidden gems that have been created as a result of their events.