KUCHING: At 8.20pm last Friday, Kuching became the 562nd city in the world to organise its own Pecha Kucha Night, a popular global event devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Tokyo’s Dytham Klein Architecture.
The programme, which was held at an eatery here, begun with a personal video by Astrid and Mark welcoming Kuching to the global PKN family and introducing the history and idea behind it all via 20 slides which were shown for 20 seconds each.
The theme for the evening was ‘It’s personal’.
First to take the microphone was PKN Kuching organiser, Ahmad Azuar Zainuddin, sharing his personal project Sejoli Reds Football Club. It was an initiative to rejuvenate the neighbourhood institution through football. Azuar accounted how he planned to develop a sustainable model to fund small community projects by engaging stakeholders and spreading the cost.
John Mathai, of Hose’s Civet and Small Carnivore project, then passionately detailed his project of saving the small carnivore of Borneo, specifically civets. John’s project utilises camera trap and mathematical models to understand civet’ss habitat. He noted that civets are overlooked compared to more charismatic species like the hornbills and orang utans.
This is followed by a presentation by Swinburne University of Technology’s associate head of School for Design, Greg Wee, talking about his personal journey of cartooning Sarawak. Greg’s presentation recounted his inspirations and influences in drawing characters for his comics and animation projects.
The fourth and last presenter for the night was the principal of Kuching-based design studio, Studio Yolk, and president of the Sarawak Chapter of the Malaysian Graphic Arts Association (WREGA) John Huang, who talked about his pro-bono design projects he had worked on for good causes as well as for family, friends and himself. Among the work shown is a beautiful logo that was not selected for Rediscovery: Icograda Design Week 2012 in Kuching.
The next PKN Kuching will be organised during the Rediscovery: Icograda Design Week 2012 in Kuching from Oct 15-21. More information is available on PKN Kuching Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/PechaKuchaNightKuching.