6-min creative jamming

No one likes a long lecture. That is precisely why a presentation platform for creative minds will allow speakers only six minutes to express their ideas and capture the audience’s attention this Friday.

No one likes a long lecture. That is precisely why a presentation platform for creative minds will allow speakers only six minutes to express their ideas and capture the audience’s attention this Friday.

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It’s a platform involving participants from architecture, photography, cinema, poetry and art, and goes by the name of Pecha Kucha, the Japanese word for the sound of chit-chat. This is the sixth Pecha Kucha Night (PKN) in the city, and will be hosted at Jnanapravaha, an interactive arts forum at Fort.

It will include photo slides by young architects and a number of social issue-based presentations by NGOs, professionals and even school students. Each presenter gets to show 20 slides for 20 seconds each.

“People assume lectures are the only way of presenting ideas. But you don’t need lectures to show a glimpse of your latest art work, read poetry or talk about your love for music,” said Kaiwan Mehta, a city architect who participated in a PKN while on a fellowship in Hungary, and then brought the concept to Mumbai in December 2008.

When Tokyo-based architects Klein Dytham launched them in 2003, PKNs were meant only for architects. Mehta threw it open to people from all arts.

Previous PKNs, held every four months, have had names such as poet Ranjit Hoskote and architect Y.D. Pitkar present alongside art novices, with more than 200 people in the audience.

“It’s a great way to network. Mumbai has few such interactive spaces,” said Kaiwan.

Geetanjali Basarkod, one of the three Class 12 students from Cathedral School presenting on Friday, has planned a slide show of her sociology project on tribal displacement due to industrialisation. “It will be a chance to present outside school, before grown-ups and professionals,” said Basarkod, the second batch of students from Cathedral to participate in a PKN.

(Pecha Kucha Night on August 6 will begin at 8.20 pm at Jnanapravaha, Fort. Free audience passes are available at the venue, and those interested in presenting their work can register at kaiwanmehta@gmail.com)