Pecha Kucha Night Dundee Vol. 21 TAKEOVER took place at the Whitehall Theatre on Wednesday 23 May 2018 in collaboration with Dundee Design Month & Year of Young People 2018!

This event was curated by local young people, through our work with Hot Chocolate Trust and V&A Young People Collective, from selecting the speakers (and speaking themselves) to marketing, filming, hosting and social media. Pecha Kucha Nights run in over 1,000 cities around the world, they’re a quick-fire way of hearing from people across the city and beyond, and tickets generally go fast…

You can read our blog about co-designing the event, here.

At Pecha Kucha Night Dundee we have around 12 diverse individuals who speak about whatever they like, and it’s a speedy format – presenters have 20 images and 20 secs per image – so just under 7 mins, which means you hear a lot of interesting, thought-provoking and inspiring stuff with an audience 300+ people – it’s a great night out!

Our regular ‘spread the word’ feature on the night gives anyone the chance to grab the mic and shout out the events and opportunities they have coming up.

A huge thanks to Steven Peebles for the incredible PKN artwork, which was commissioned by the young people steering group. Check out more of his illustrations here.

To find out more about the format, you can watch over 260 Pecha Kucha Night Dundee talks over on our video wall.

All talks at this event were BSL interpreted by Jennifer Ramsay and Linda Duncan, videos below. 

Speakers Included: 

John Alexander is a local councillor and the current Leader of Dundee City Council. He is the youngest council leader in Scotland at the age of 29 and has been a councillor since the age of 23, holding senior positions in the ruling administration including Convener of Housing and Convener of Neighbourhood Services. As the political leader, John sets the strategic direction, political agenda and policy development of Dundee City Council. He leads several key bodies including the Dundee Partnership, Scottish Cities Alliance and chairs the Policy & Resources Committee which oversees the City Council’s total gross revenue/capital budget of £890 million. John has led efforts to involve young people in local decision making including creating a Children & Young Persons Champion, creating the Dundee Youth Fund and supporting the involvement of young people on council committees. @CllrAlexander

C.Gul has explored many different techniques and mediums over the last 6 years, all centred around the common theme of seagulls. He began by creating seagull models out of recycled items and quickly combined his love of seagulls and spray-painting, developing his current art style. Over the years he has honed techniques that have allowed him to create the large pieces that can be found scattered around Dundee today. @c.gul

Bit Loom is made up of James, Henry and Douglas – three friends and members of Biome Collective, creating experimental games that seek to surprise and delight through enchanting visuals and unexpected interactions. Now developing their first project PHOGS! @bitloomgames

Victoria Potts is in her third year studying for a BA in Textile Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD), Dundee. She is fond of the simple things, a sharp pencil, a good cup of tea, a good book and most importantly the natural world. Since arriving to study in Dundee – the city of design – Victoria has determined to redesign her life, by mindfully reducing her consumer waste and creating a more sustainable lifestyle, and educating others to the damage rampant consumerism is doing to our world. Victoria lives by her father’s words of wisdom “Design or be designed”. @material__girlll

Hannah Cook and Nicole Ritchie are a youth worker and young person musical duo. Aside from working together at Hot Chocolate Trust, they have created a great relationship through their love of bands/artists and performing! They are excited to share their passion at Pecha Kucha.

Jacob Dudgeon is a student of Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Perth College UHI, whilst also being an avid theatre enthusiast. After being forced to follow another educational path than originally hoped, he’s excited to talk about how his passion for theatre and acting has not been dampened even after experiencing many barriers with continuing his desired journey and hopes this can transfer onto fellow young people and others wanting to maintain their arty passions whilst achieving other educational goals.

Janice Aitken is an artist who works in a variety of media including photography, painting, digital media and sculpture. Her work is often focused on encouraging community involvement and public engagement in public spaces and museums and galleries. Her photographic exhibition ‘my silence will never protect me’ is currently on show on the hoardings around Slessor Gardens as part of the ‘Sharing Not Hoarding’ project. The exhibition was inspired by a diverse group of women all of whom have had their voices silenced in some way. Janice is a Reader in art and design and Associate Dean at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. She is also the artist who designed the penguin sculpture for the upcoming Maggie’s Penguin Parade. @jaypea_aitken

Quintana Beattie is a school student, artist, and dragon. In her spare time, she loves to paint and draw. Art is her passion but she also loves watching really good movies, longboarding and listening to music. She loves movie quotes but couldn’t tell you what her favourite movie is if she tried. “I hate peas” as Heath Ledger once said. She doesn’t hate many things but does hate untrustworthy people and country music. She ain’t no auld McDonald!

Chantelle Patton is 20 and lives in Dundee. She is currently an art student finishing her HND. One thing she loves is her fat dog Murphy and one thing she hates is cabbage. She attends Hot Chocolate Trust and through this has had some great opportunities to do some great things surrounding art. Just lately she has been involved in AMC which is a project run by HCT that meant she got to travel to places such as Liverpool and even Denmark to create artwork based on what she had seen and felt in these places. The artwork they created for this project was then showcased at DCA where they had an exhibition to finally show all of the work that we worked so hard on.

Prof. Vladan Joler is Share Foundation founder and professor at the New Media department at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia. He is leading a SHARE Lab, a research and data investigation lab for exploring different technical aspects of the intersections between technology and society. Share Foundation is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to protecting the rights of Internet citizens and promoting positive values of openness, decentralization, free access and exchange of knowledge, information and technology. @sharedatalab

Romilda Grima is passionate about food, especially local produce. She is a committee member of the Slow Food Tayside and North Fife which is a global, grassroots movement around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment – they promote a better way to eat, celebrating the rich food traditions of the different nations that make up the UK, and protecting our edible biodiversity. Romilda is also the coordinator of The Dundee Food Assembly which brings together people to buy fresh food directly from local farmers and food makers. The food is produced by small-scale farmers and local food makers. Producers set their own price; meaning that they are paid fairly for their work. The Food Assembly doesn’t act as a middleman but as a service provider. @FoodDundee

Cahal Menzies and Ellen Wilson are members of The National Youth Arts Advisory Group (NYAAG) who are a group of around 30 young people from across Scotland. The NYAAG are managed by Young Scot and they work with Creative Scotland and wider stakeholders to determine the priorities of youth arts at a regional, national and international level.

James and Sarah are students at the Garydne college. In a scene written by John McCann they make a powerful point about the lives of young people in Scotland.

Steven Sheath is an artist whose most recent work focuses on an epidemic that bees and wasps are currently facing due to human impact. Steven is an environmental artist as his work addresses issues relating to the environment and declining habitats. He is a recent Fine Art graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone, college of Art and Design.  He works with organic materials, employing methods such as scanning 3D and printing the natural forms and casting them, translating them into larger ceramic works, altering our perspective of nature.

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PECHA KUCHA NIGHT DUNDEE VOL 21 TAKEOVER

Date: Wednesday 23rd May 2018

Time: 7 – 10pm (event will kick off at 7.20pm)

Place: Whitehall Theatre, 12 Bellfield Street, Dundee, DD1 5JA

Event hashtag: #PKN_DND

For this event, bookings can only be made by credit/debit cards, and refunds will be made only if the order is cancelled in advance of the event, not after. If you have any problems booking a ticket, please contact news@creativedundee.com

*Pecha Kucha Night Dundee Vol.21 will be filmed, live-streamed on Facebook, photographed and eventually shared on the Creative Dundee social media platforms. If you do not wish to appear in any of the recordings that are made public, please let us know at news@creativedundee.com

*Please note that – in collaboration with the young people who co-designed this event – we have all agreed to have a ‘dry’ bar, which means that the bar staff will not be selling alcoholic drinks on the night. Thanks for your understanding!

*This event will be BSL interpreted by Jennifer Ramsay and Linda Duncan. Shoot us an email at news@creativedundee.com if you’d like to be seated in a specific section to see this better.

What is Pecha Kucha Night?

If you’ve not been to Pecha Kucha Night Dundee before, then all we can say is come along and try it out. PKN is part of a massive global network, which you can find out more about here.
Pecha Kucha Nights* were originally started back in 2003 in Tokyo, as an event for creatives to meet, network, and talk about their work in public. Since then Pecha Kucha, meaning ‘chit chat’ in Japanese, has spread internationally running in over 1,000 cities across the world. The much loved and respected format is relaxed, simple and enjoyable, with something for everyone – presenters have 6 minutes 40 seconds to show and talk through their 20 images, each for just 20 seconds – this keeps things fast and fun!

*Pecha Kucha was devised and shared by Klein Dytham architecture. The PKN Dundee event is organised and hosted by Creative Dundee.

Pecha Kucha Night Dundee Vol 21 TAKEOVER is delivered by Creative Dundee in partnership with Dundee Design Festival as part of Scotland’s Year of Young People 2018. 

A huge thanks to The Whitehall Theatre for their kind support!