Audience members watch a Pecha Kucha presentation in Tokyo. (CC) Photo by Ami Harikoshi

On an outdoor patio in Kampala, observers lounge in the near-darkness, watching as an image is projected on a bare white sheet slung between two trees. In Reykjavik, a spellbound audience fills a basement bar and waits for the first slide to illuminate the wall. And in Toronto, a crowded pavilion is abuzz as the lights dim and the first presenter takes the stage. In 181 cities speckling the globe, Pecha Kucha is bringing people together for art, design, and change.

The concept is simple: presenters each show 20 slides, and each slide is shown for 20 seconds. Originally created as a way for designers and architects to share new projects and ideas, Pecha Kucha (Japanese for “chit chat”) has expanded to include participants from virtually every field. Presenters include artists, politicians (Toronto mayor David Miller, for example), comedians, and journalists, among others. Though the concept is only six years old, 2008 saw an impressive 370 Pecha Kucha nights around the world.

Perhaps more remarkable than Pecha Kucha’s rapid global proliferation is the face-to-face exchange of ideas and creativity that happens at every event. Word about the presentations has spread largely through the internet, making Pecha Kucha a rare example of a web-based phenomenon that encourages real human interaction.

It has also proved to be a fantastic showcase for unknown talent. “One of the biggest surprises,” says one of Pecha Kucha’s creators, Mark Dytham, a British architect who has been living and working in Japan for the last 20 years, “was that in some of the smaller cities, people would say, ‘That was amazing! We had no idea there was so much creative talent working right here.’ It’s as if people don’t realize what they have right at home, because we’re not really communicating effectively anymore.” Dytham co-founded Pecha Kucha with Astrid Klein in their creative studio in Tokyo.

At a recent Pecha Kucha night in Toronto, Dytham’s cure for ineffective communication was put to the test. Bob Hambly, of the graphic design firm Hambly & Woolley Inc., a thin middle-aged man in a black polo shirt, was the first to present. In a slightly nasal voice, he explained that his presentation would be on “the design and art of nature,” at which point a 10-foot image of a parrot in a wooden box was projected onto the screen behind him.

Hambly launched into a mile a minute lecture on the natural world as creative inspiration. The screen flashed 20 images, among them: Australian salt ponds, an Audubon print of a swan, a nautilus shell that spirals in a perfect Fibonacci sequence, and a dead lamb encased in glass, courtesy of conceptual artist Damien Hirst.

Hambly’s speech proved too long, and his words streamed out with increasing speed to catch up with the slides. The presentation’s climax came when, during a projection of his birdnest collection, Hambly pulled out a real nest, crushed it, and watched it bounce back into its original form, demonstrating the Weaver bird’s knack for resilient design. The audience cheered and Hambly concluded with a quote from architect Frank Lloyd Wright: “Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”

Hambly’s presentation served as a six-minute and 40-second highlight reel of a career’s worth of creative inspiration. It is this enforced brevity that discourages obfuscating digressions and promotes precision. Pecha Kucha distills the motivating idea to its essence; clarity, if not always depth, is a happy consequence.

With an event almost nightly somewhere in the world— including regular presentations in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Halifax—Dytham hopes to harness the worldwide enthusiasm for Pecha Kucha to address social, political, and environmental issues that could benefit from the design community’s attention. “I’m tired of going to design conferences and seeing another really funky-looking chair, another really funky-looking building,” says Dytham. “We want to support people who are making things that will improve people’s lives and the world in a tangible way.”

[Photo source: Ami Harikoshi. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0]

It is because of cases like this that a group of activists is lobbying Toronto council to adopt a policy that would prevent city workers, including police, from inquiring about the immigration status of people seeking services. It would also prevent them from passing on information about immigration status to any federal or provincial agency. “We felt it was essential for a lot of people we were working with to be able to access services without fear,” says Sima Zerehi, a campaign organizer with No One Is Illegal.

Zerehi says the idea came about in 2003, after organizers heard of a similar policy in New York City and began to realize how many of the non-status people they worked with in immigration detention centres had ended up there as a result of trying to access city services. Non-status persons, sometimes called illegal immigrants, are people who entered the country legally but lost their right to remain here, either because their refugee claim was denied or they overstayed a tourist visa. Until they are ordered deported or granted status, they are stuck in a legal limbo, with no official immigration status. And with an estimated 20,000 to 200,000 non-status persons living in Canada—half of those in the Toronto area—Zerehi says it’s imperative the city make it easier for them to access essential services without fear of being reported to immigration authorities.

Campaign organizers say non-status persons are entitled to services because the Canadian economy benefits from their labour. “Communities without status do contribute in a positive way to our economy. There really isn’t any reason why they shouldn’t be offered adequate services,” says Zerehi.

Police routinely ask about immigration status when investigating unrelated matters, such as domestic violence complaints. “If, through the normal course of an investigation, we find people with various immigration statuses, obviously we communicate that to Immigration Canada,” says Sergeant Jim Muscat of the Toronto Police Service.

That’s precisely the kind of situation organizers would like to change. But they realize that even having a policy might not make a difference immediately. For example, schools in Ontario are required to admit children whose parents are “unlawfully in Canada.” Yet, according to Martha Mackinnon, executive director of the Justice for Children and Youth Legal Clinic, about 100 children were denied access to Toronto schools this past year, even though the school board has a policy of admitting non-status children. “We took action, and to our knowledge, everyone was admitted,” she says. “Unfortunately, I think that we need more work on the implementation of the policy, especially at a local school level,” concedes school board trustee Bruce Davis.

With the campaign still in its early days, organizers are hopeful. Mayor David Miller supports the principle that all city residents should have access to city services: “The general policy in our administration is that, unless legally obliged, city workers do not ask about immigration status.” But despite his tacit endorsement and the fact that a variety of community organizations and three city councillors have come on board, the city’s official position is that non-status persons already have access to some services, such as public health nurses and homeless shelters, and that the city is prevented by provincial legislation from providing other services, such as social housing. Under the Social Housing Reform Act, for example, every person in the household must have legal status in order for the entire family to be placed on the waiting list.

Organizers say their next step is to hold a public forum this fall. The sooner council addresses the issue, the better, says Cindy Cowan, executive director of the women’s shelter Nellie’s, who sees first-hand what happens when women at risk are afraid to call the police and why a policy is necessary. “It would reduce the fear,” she says, “and enable women to get the support and services they need.”