On Tuesday the 14th of July, Metal hosted their third Pecha Kucha Night in Chalkwell Park. Metal along with the white bus and many willing volunteers spent the whole afternoon setting up a huge inflatable projection screen, with rows of deckchairs to create an outdoor theatre style space.
An hour before the evening began the heavens opened and threatened to put a stop to the event. But there was still a small ray of hope, as a thin strip of blue sky appeared and the rain stopped. Finally at about 8pm the evening got started. In true British spirit roughly 150 people turned out, not frightened off by the weather, and the welcoming staff of MyKitchen provided a delicious barbecue.
By 9pm, the artists showed off their works, according to the Pecha Kucha rules, twenty images with twenty seconds to explain each one of them.
The six presentation were given by Greg Klerkx, writer and producer, Andrew Carpenter, a designer maker of contemporary furniture and public art, Adam Perry, drummer with US rock band Bloodhoundgang, owner and director of Medical Music, John Hiscocks & Andy T. of AEW Architects, who work in Southend, Graham Harwood, an international award winning artist and co-founder of Mongrel and the evening ended with Rachel Lichtenstein, an artist, writer and oral historian who published “Rodinsky’s Whitechapel”.
A short presentation was given by Pecha Kucha founders, Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein, via a video sent from Tokyo welcoming Southend to Pecha Kucha. Southend on Sea now joins over 180 other cities from around the world currently enjoying these nights. For further information on Pecha Kucha please see www.pecha-kucha.org .
