Following the success of Calgary's inaugural PechaKucha Night, Calgary Arts Development presents PechaKucha Night #2: How We Live Together.

Thursday, December 3, 2009
Doors at 7:00pm, 7:30pm start
Tickets $10
Uptown Stage and Screen, 612 – 8th Avenue SW

Please note this is a licensed event - no minors.

Devised and shared by Klein Dytham Architecture in 2003 as a place for designers, developers and architects to meet, network and show their work in public, PechaKucha Nights are now taking place in 256 cities around the world. The format is simple: speakers present 20 slides each, for 20 seconds per slide. Calgary Arts Development has secured the rights to PechaKucha Nights in Calgary and will be hosting 4 PechaKucha Nights over the course of the year.

The theme for the December 3rd PechaKucha Night is “How We Live Together.” Presenters include:

• Naheed Nenshi, Associate Professor, Bissett School of Business, MRU
• Susan Veres, Communications Director, Calgary Municipal Land Corporation
• Eric Moschopedis, Interdisciplinary Artist and Creator of Imaginary Ordinary
• David Plouffe, Acting Executive Assistant to the Director of Land Use Planning and Policy, City of Calgary
• Lothar Wiwjorra, Senior Urban Planner, City of Calgary
• Bernie Amell, Landscape Architect, Prairie Sky Co-Housing
• Jerrod Bitango, Pastor, Central United Church
• Gian-Carlo Carra, Senior Urban Designer, T | six
• Dr. Tom Keenan, Associate Dean (Academic) and Professor, EVDS, U of C
• Xstine Cook, Artistic Director, Calgary Animated Objects Society
• Quinton Rafuse, Partner, CoworkYYC
• John Frosst, Arbour Lake Sghool; President, Pith Gallery; Executive Director, Art City

For more information, please contact Bil Hetherington at Bil.Hetherington@CalgaryArtsDevelopment.com or 403-264-5330. 

Buy tickets: http://calgarypkn2.eventbrite.com

www.pecha-kucha.org/cities/calgary
www.calgaryculture.com/yycpkn

The following speakers will be participating in PKN #2:

Naheed Nenshi
Associate Professor, Bissett School of Business, MRU
Naheed Nenshi is Associate Professor at Mount Royal University’s Bissett School of Business, where he coordinates the nonprofit management programs. He is also managing director of the Ascend Group, a consultancy whose clients have included the Gap and the United Nations. Previously, he taught at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business and was an engagement manager with McKinsey and Company. Lead author of Building Up: Making Canada’s Cities Magnets for Talent and Engines of Development, he is considered one of the nation’s top thinkers on the future of cities.

Naheed holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree with distinction from the University of Calgary – where he was president of the Students’ Union – as well as a Master in Public Policy degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he studied as a Kennedy Fellow.

Active in the community, Naheed was chair of the EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts, and was named one of Calgary’s Top 40 under 40 by Calgary Inc. magazine. He is a frequent contributor to the comment page of the Calgary Herald and is often called upon as a media commentator on the non-profit sector, urban issues and retail businesses.

Susan Veres
Communications Director, Calgary Municipal Land Corporation
Susan Veres is the Senior Director of Communications and Marketing for Calgary Municipal Land Corporation, the organization charged with the rejuvenation of Calgary’s East Village. Her responsibilities include media and public relations, brand stewardship, community engagement and developer relations.

Prior to her role with CMLC, Susan provided strategic marketing counsel to a wide variety of companies and clients including Coca-Cola Limited, West Edmonton Mall, Tourism Calgary, Economic Development Edmonton, CGA Alberta, GEC Architecture and WinSport.  She has extensive experience creating and implementing both national and regional marketing, brand development and client relations programs to support the business goals of numerous organizations.

Eric Moschopedis
Interdisciplinary Artist and Creator of Imaginary Ordinary
Eric Moschopedis is an award winning interdisciplinary performer, facilitator, educator and curator. In 2008, Moschopedis completed his Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of British Columbia: Okanagan. By combining a childlike curiosity with the scrutiny of an ethnographer, Moschopedis creates community-specific, relational and participatory works that invite audiences to become active collaborators in the creation of community.

In addition to participatory works, Moschopedis maintains a performance practice that oscillates between staged performance, performance for video, installation, performative work, intervention, and walking, finding and collecting. Moschopedis is a sessional instructor in the Department of Drama at the University of Calgary and continues to play an active role in the development and dissemination of original interdisciplinary performance and visual art.

David Plouffe
Acting Executive Assistant to the Director of Land Use Planning and Policy, City of Calgary
David Plouffe has worked in Canada's cultural sector for 17 years as heritage interpreter, educator, public programs manager and planner. Since the late 1990s, he has specialized in informal education, program development and heritage planning and interpretation.

David's work in cultural development began in the mid-nineties with Seagram Corporation's museum. In 1997, David joined the Vancouver Museum as their Public Programs Officer. In Vancouver, David conceived and launched numerous award winning public program initiatives.

David Plouffe holds a master's degree in Recreation & Leisure Studies, specializing in cultural development. He is an advocate for civic tourism that weaves together arts, heritage, natural history, agritourism and culinary experiences to form a "cultural tapestry" that reveals a destination's cultural character, sense of place and "terroir.”

David works for the City of Calgary as a Heritage Planner and more recently as Acting Executive Assistant to the Director of Land Use Planning.

Lothar Wiwjorra
Senior Urban Planner, City of Calgary
Originally from Bremen, Germany, Lothar Wiwjorra has been Senior Urban Designer at the City of Calgary since the beginning of 2009. Prior to that, he was Principal and Owner of WICON Consulting in Potsdam & Berlin, Germany; Senior Planner for Aplin&Martin Consultants Ltd. in Surrey, BC; and Manager of Planning and Urban Design North for the Dutch Grontmij Group in Bremen, Germany. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Dortmund, Germany, in Urban Design and Planning.

Bernie Amell
Landscape Architect, Prairie Sky Co-Housing
Bernie Amell is a Calgary-based environmental designer working at the interface of aquatic ecology, engineering and landscape aesthetics. Like many designers, he has a well-nurtured ego. His ego has been challenged and moderated in recent years by his immersion in an intentional community – an experience that he will describe in his PechaKucha presentation.

Jerrod Bitango
Pastor, Central United Church
Fun Facts: Uses Old Spice because he aspires to be a wise, old curmudgeon; trusts that Rocky Balboa has all necessary advice for living that a person could want; and will only “put his whole body in and shake it all about” with a doctor’s permission.

Real Facts: Has worked as a community leader/networker with faith-based non-profits for over 10 years, serves on several non-profit boards ranging from cooperative housing projects to community art co-ops and has 6 years experience working with marginalized populations in inner city Calgary.

What he believes: That the soul of a community is nurtured through creativity, that the maturity of a community is formed by its compassion to others and that the future of a community is discretely embedded within the noise of the present.

What’s he doing: Community outreach with Central United Church, writing and experiencing Canadian urban theology and letting his backbone slide.

Gian-Carlo Carra
Senior Urban Designer, T | six
Gian-Carlo Carra is a Calgary-based urban designer who balances professional practice with community service and academic research.  Committed to bridging the gap between ideals, practicality and education of the public, Gian-Carlo’s practice includes expertise in urban design, project management, Charrette facilitation, education and public speaking.  Gian-Carlo holds a Master in Urban Design from the University of Calgary.  He is serving his seventh term as President of the Inglewood Community Association. 

His community-based urban design work in East Calgary has won both a Brownie Award from the Canadian Urban Institute and a Charter Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism.  He is currently working with celebrity contractor Mike Holmes to design a sustainable neighborhood on the south edge of Okotoks.  A couple of years ago, Gian-Carlo was named one of Calgary’s Top 40 Under 40 - and as he’s still under 40, he still reminds people.

Dr. Tom Keenan
Associate Dean (Academic) and Professor, EVDS, U of C
Dr. Tom Keenan has seen computer technology evolve from room-sized behemoths to powerful devices that can be worn as jewelry.  He even has a vest pocket camera that can record your entire life.   If only you had time to watch it.

Educated at Columbia University, where he earned four degrees in fields as diverse as Philosophy, Engineering and Education, he educates well beyond the university walls, writing a regular technology column for Business Edge and a men’s health column for the Calgary Herald.  He’s one of the first people the media call when something very good or very bad happens in the world of technology, and has appeared on programs such as The National and Canada AM.  Tom has written hundreds of scholarly and popular articles, most recently a book chapter on what happens to data you post online.

His 1984 CBC IDEAS series "Crimes of the Future" predicted many of the crimes that have developed since then, including Identity Theft and trafficking in human tissue.  But he forgot to predict the Internet, so he spends a lot of time now thinking about the social implications of the technologies we have, and the ones that are just around the corner.

Xstine Cook
Artistic Director, Calgary Animated Objects Society
Xstine Cook is the Artistic Director and founder of the Calgary Animated Objects Society (CAOS) and Curator of the International Festival of Animated Objects, a biennial ten-day festival of mask and puppetry in Calgary.
 
A mask and puppet maker for over 20 years, Xstine has studied mask and puppetry in Bali, Italy, France, California and the West Coast of Canada. Xstine trained at the Dell’Arte School of Physical Theatre in California, and has worked as a performer and designer on several Dell’Arte International productions.
 
A co-founder and former Co-Artistic Director of Calgary’s Green Fools Theatre, Xstine was a major creator, writer and performer in that troupe’s original mask, puppet and stilt productions from 1991 to 2004.  She also managed the troupe for many years in tours around the province, country and globe, and many of her large puppets and stilt figures still appear at provincial and national festivals.
 
Xstine’s love and admiration of native North American culture is reflected in the performance works she has helped create:  Original Instructions with the Karuk Storytellers & Dell’Arte, Goosluxxs, the Tsimphsian Legend of Hartley Bay with Big Sky, The Trial of Standing Bear with Opera Omaha and the Ponca Tribe, The Gift, a railroad reconciliation with Green Fools’ B&E Circus and Journey of Ten Moons with Dell’Arte.
 
Xstine also plays the singing saw, has performed as a whip artist in a circus and occasionally sings original songs with her band.  She makes short puppet films such as the trilogy Face and Mooks at Home, which was shown at the National Gallery as part of Alberta Scene, and Dead Boyfriends, which was shown in numerous film festivals including Radar Hamburg, Coney Island and the Strausbourg and Edmonton International Film Festivals.

Quinton Rafuse
Partner, CoworkYYC
Quinton is a practicing professional Geologist. He has worked as a petroleum geologist for over 10 years and currently holds the position of Vice-President Geosciences for a junior oil and gas firm in Calgary.

To compliment his oil proclivities, Quinton has a strong sense of community and is determined to make where we live the best it can be. He is a former board member of the Ramsay Community association, where, through work with Calgary Police and other stakeholders, he helped make Calgary's most creative community a safer place to live. He was selected as one of Oilweek’s Rising Stars of 2008 for his business conduct and work in the community.

This past summer, he helped start CoworkYYC, Calgary's first contribution to the coworking movement as an effort to foster innovation, provide a creative venue for the freelance community and have a cool place to hang out when the downtown skyscraper just isn't cutting it.

John Frosst
Arbour Lake Sghool; President, Pith Gallery; Executive Director, Art City
John Frosst is a cool guy.

In 2003, John Frosst and a like-minded group of artists conceptualized a low-cost living quarters and studio for themselves and set up shop in a suburban home owned by John and his brother Andrew. The site became a hothouse for collaborative art, and the Arbour Lake Sghool was born, providing a stage for the creation and display of artistic and critical projects that explore and engage the Sghool’s suburban setting.  Notably, the Arbour Lake Sghool built a 2-story cardboard mountain, planted a field of barley, and dug trenches to reenact the Great War in their backyard, to the consternation of many neighbours and City bylaw officers. The Sghool is fresh off a trip to Toronto, where they were contracted to demolish a suburban home and use the scraps to build a shantytown in the yard. Living in a house jam-packed with creative nutbags has its ups and downs, and John has a lot of stories to tell. 

In addition to running the Sghool, John is President of the newly minted Pith Gallery & Studios and is the Executive Director of Artcity Festival.  Until very recently, John drove heavy equipment in remote-access locations for fun and profit.