20x20, PechaKucha (CityStudio #5)

Last week we hosted the first ever CityStudio PechaKucha event. If we were able to successfully impose purity upon our presenting guests, everyone present would have witnessed 20 images total, each for 20 seconds, from each of our 9 partner course presenters. Instead, some presented none, while others yet: videos. The idea of PechaKucha was invented by two architects in Tokyo. Architects, very much like the designers who have adopted this presentation format worldwide, like to package things particularly prettily. Not long into our night, it was made clear that other ways of thinking were present – ways that package themselves differently (or not at all).

As the presentations wound to a close, we heard various takes on words of wisdom from each of our honored guests. They ranged from praise for our abilities to push the boundaries in such a short amount of time…to warnings of our need to know policy for any idea to work…to various accolades shared between people who have helped to make CityStudio a reality. I watched. I listened. I took pictures, mostly, as a volunteer photographer for the evening, and throughout it all, I thought back to my idea of Rain Stops. It was no longer sitting right with me.

As a graduate student with an agenda, it is often easy to lose sight of those who came before you and those running in stride with you. It would be ideal to constantly be engaged with dialogue and exchange as we are each Thursday evening at CityStudio, but reality often finds me spending most of my time in my own head. Bus stops embody a physical manifestation of this insularity. We have all experienced the lack of interaction with others in such public spaces. Looking forward or at one's mobile while minding business only your own is easy. Interacting with others takes effort…working with others also takes effort. How, then, might this project become stronger by working with others? What have others started that I might be able to contribute to with my ideas?

I am reminded of a lesson taught to me when I was a fourth year undergrad. I was studying industrial design at the Rochester Institute of Technology and was an officer for the student chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). Our regional conference that year was at the Rhode Island School of Design where Eva Zeisel was our keynote speaker. (She is now 104 years old and still designing.) One of the first things she spoke of was regarding the title of the IDSA professional publication: Innovation. "Innovation," she warned, "is defined as creating something entirely new out of nothing. Such a thing is impossible and trying to achieve it is naive." Instead, "everything we make comes from somewhere," she shared. By recognizing this, we revere the past and all the essential thought and work that led to the ideas of the present.

For Rain Stops to sit right with me, I need to better understand that which has come before me and that which I am working alongside with. There are people and groups in this city who care deeply about water. Whatever grows out of my original idea will be enriched by working with others. If there was one lesson to be gleaned from the PechaKucha event, it is that there are many people working towards the singular (sometimes elusive) goal of sustainability and that by working together, we can go further, faster.