Small talks buck algorithms

Every time I go out for a cultural happening, I hear the echo of Montana Poet Laureate Chris La Tray from his Bigfork talk last fall: “What a triumph of decision making that we are all here together instead of doom scrolling at home.”

Just leaving the house can be a win with all the absorbing political news. These days, smiling feels radical. 

If I sit home slurping up whatever pablum social media spoons me, I only get mad and sad. 

There’s a bright spot, though: PechaKucha.  

“PechaKucha” means chitchat in Japanese, but it delivers way more. Founders Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, two Brit architects who’ve lived in Japan for decades, noticed the draw of Monday meetings with their staff, when everyone shared what they were working on and showed images from site visits and projects. At the same time, they managed an art space where they hoped to fill a dead night with some kind of show and tell.  

Synergy struck. 

The PechaKucha format centers on 20 slides of 20 seconds each, because as Dytham noted in an online interview, “Architects talk too much” and the speed kept them off “boring handrail details.” As local organizer Alisha Shilling explained at the first Flathead PechaKucha of 2025, presenters “have 6 minutes 40 seconds to do their elevator pitch. It’s like a Ted Talk but cooler.” 

Since its 2003 debut, PechaKucha has, according to Klein and Dytham, become a “global storytelling platform that celebrates people, passion and creative thought” in more than 1,320 communities in 140 countries where “users share ideas and connect with others visually, concisely and memorably.” 

The Flathead launched its PechaKucha run in 2017, so far totaling nine events and 50 presentations. At the art and design-focused one in late January, Alyssa Cordova of Glacier Art Museum and Sydney Boveng talked about the creative process, which for Boveng means “my eyes are up, my phone is down. It starts with noticing.” Local PechaKucha founder Ben Oblas talked comics, followed by artist Charlotte Mack, whose self-portraiture often starts with, “What can I create with my limbs right now?” 

Meredith Patterson detailed her Broadway foray, and Kristen Fortier traveled from New York magazine publishing to birth doula and photographer inspired by her revelation as a mother: “The person I was when I walked into the hospital was different from the person who walked out with my son.” Designer George Giavasis pointed to the “power in being together” and the valley as a special place that’s “more than a tourist trap or a scenic place to build a fourth home.” 

Tarek, child of a Pakistani Swedish father and a Hungarian American mom, grew up in Sweden and ended up in Montana making watercolor-painted linocut prints. “I feel like no one is born an artist,” he said. “A seasonal job and a random art class can change your life, too.” 

Lastly, it was Annette Strean Cornelius’s turn. I hoped the crafter of tunes with killer hooks would say a little about performing with Blue Man Group in a 40-pound dress festooned with programmed lights. But when she got to the podium, she didn’t tell us her story. She sang it. 

Margaret E. Davis, executive director of the Northwest Montana History Museum, can be reached at mdavis@dailyinterlake.com.