The 318th good thing about Lagos: experience Pecha Kucha

Have you ever heard about Pecha Kucha?  I hadn't either.  That is, until last April when the Goethe Society was sponsoring a Pecha Kucha night and we decided to see what it was about.  For those that won't bother to follow the link to the Pecha Kucha website, I'll quote what they say about it:

"PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.
It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace."

You may have heard about TED  -- well this seemed like some mini-TED presentations, but with an emphasis on the artistic or creative, and not on technology.  And it went so fast -- with each presenter showing 20 slides, each for 20 seconds and talking about their work, there was never time to get bored by anyone.

It was a really fun idea and a really fun evening. One thing that was neat was the venue. We were on the roof of the city hall.  They said they didn't really have approval to be up there, so hopefully no government busy bodies are reading my blog and no one will get in trouble.  Because it was a really great place to do this:  a big open flat roof with a view of the city around, a nice breeze and removed from the noise of the city.

 This is the lobby of the City Hall -- it has some pretty neat wood carvings decorating the walls.

 There was quite a nice variety of presenters at this Pecha Kucha night:  painters, sculptors, dancers, a film-maker, photographers.  We enjoyed getting acquainted with the work from some new artists and creative people.  There was some nice visiting time, too.  Most of my photos ended up too dark to share, but here are a couple.

 To put on an official Pecha Kucha night for a city, you have to be an approved leader by the Pecha Kucha organization and probably receive some kind of training.  But it seems like a simple enough idea that if you have a powerpoint projector and some creative people who want to talk about their work, or even people who want to show off their photos from their last vacation, or their recent crafting projects, or their unusual collection -- how about just getting together to "chit-chat" or "Pecha Kucha."