Sep. 10, 2008 - Issue #673: Sex in the City 2008

Pecha Kucha 2

Rapid-fire lectures take aim at youth

‘You can hope to improve around it, I think, but you’re never going to get rid of it; it’s just too catchy.” For someone so resigned to the inevitable, civil engineer Christian Nelson sounds quite upbeat. He certainly seems the type who holds a make-lemonade attitude, at least if the title of his upcoming lecture at the second Pecha Kucha night of talks is any indication. His subject: reclaiming the word “Deadmonton.” “With something like that, the better way to do it is to attack it and make it your own.”
 

Specifically, Nelson thinks we should take back one of our city’s most notoriously insulting pseudonyms by holding a festival, ideally centred around Halloween—he was unaware of the already-titled horror film fest, but would be happy to incorporate it—that turns Deadmonton into a mark of pride. 
 

Nelson’s idea cuts to the quick of what an event like Pecha Kucha—and, by extension, the night’s organizing body, the City Council-sponsored NextGen initiative—is all about. Not making the best of a bad situation, exactly, but rather figuring out how to make Edmonton an attractive place for young people, often by giving them a different perspective on a place they thought they knew.

 

Pecha Kucha—which roughly translates to “chit chat” in Japanese—is an event that brings together a vareity of presenters from around the community, who each have less than seven minutes to present an idea. Ranging from Nelson’s reclamation to video game controller design to public art, the aim is to stimulate discussion about the things that members of the community  already hold dear to their heart. 
 

Thursday’s event will be only the second version of the mini-lecture night in Edmonton, but it already has a strong base to build on: despite admissions from organizers that they had no idea what the reaction would be, more than 300 people attended the first iteration.
 

“That was really affirming, because we’re always saying, ‘Of course there are a million great things going on in Edmonton ... right?’” laughs Elicia Elliott, a member of the NextGen committee and one of the event organizers. “So it was nice to see that that was actually true.” 
 

As a recent arrival from Toronto, Elliot has experienced first-hand how NextGen’s work has increased the sense of community around Edmonton’s younger generation. Still, she recognizes that, so far, they’ve really only managed to speak to a narrow demographic: “Young, educated professionals who are wealthy, usually married and home owners,” as she puts it.
 

As such, she hopes that the second Pecha Kucha—which, by its very nature, is a broad undertaking with a lot of different things to say—will appeal not only to more people, but a wider range of them, as well. 

“In terms of making an impact on the community, I think we’re doing really well in preaching to the choir, but in terms of an entire community, in terms of our mandate, I don’t think we’re there,” Elliot says frankly. “We’re addressing that, and we’re looking forward to trying different things, but we haven’t realized our full potential yet by any means, and I hope an event like [Pecha Kucha] can help us reach more people each time.” V

New comments for this entry have been turned off and any existing ones are hidden. We apologize for any inconvenience.