Only a very few cities have made it to that magic volume number — 20, of course — and Gothenburg is the most recent one to hit the milestone. The city has just had its Vol. 21 — attracting a crowd of 700+ no less — but here’s a look at the big “2-0″ event, with comments by organizer Jesper Larsson.
On June 6th (before the holidays) we arranged the 20th edition of PechaKucha in Göteborg! Since the number 20 is holy in this context, we also arranged an anniversary party and a previous presenter reunion besides the usual presentations. After all, it was the Swedish National Day and since people don’t know how to celebrate it here, we thought we would introduce a new tradition: 20 x 20.
Eccentric graffiti artist Grafitta both presented and later performed live dressed up like some beautiful creature out of Avatar.
Karin Granstrand & Annika Wahlström presented the Folkdräkt 2.0-projekt, trying to reinvent the Swedish national costume.
Indian PK Mahanandia presented his life story – the most heart-warming story ever told at PechaKucha Gothenburg. It was like Slumdog Millionaire but for real, and it ended with PK riding his bike all the way from India to Sweden in order to be with the love of his life. They are still married and living in Borås with their two children.
Legendary progressive theatre and music group Nationalteatern warned the audience of their upcoming come back.
Brittish Scott Blixen presented postpunk graphics.
The chief of Sweden’s only design museum, Röhsska, showed pictures of rotten fruit and spoke about the beauty of aging.
Since it was the Swedish National Day, designer Dan Henriksson offered a new suggestion on how to celebrate the modern multicultural Sweden. Here is what he had to say about it:
“As Swedes in general avoid waving or presenting our flag even on this day, fearing being seen as a nationalist or simply not caring, I wanted to provoke thoughts about how strong of a symbol a flag can be and what it actually means to belong to a nationality. The importance of this action is the context of our own national holiday, while creating all other countries flags but with the exact yellow and blue colours that Sweden flag has, and at the same time not presenting our own. I created hand-held fabric flags for the visitors to wave around, as well as strung up flags decorating the ceilings.”
The group Pervers Kroki (Perverted Croquis) presented the first issue of their fanzine and also put on a live show including arty videos, DJ Dienasty, live perverted croquis, and a copy-machine where you could xerox your genitalia.
DJ Naomi Paradise playing when the people are starting to arrive.
Our social media editor Frida Nelhans updating the world on what’s happening on the Gothenburg PechaKucha stage in realtime via Twitter.
