Friday, September 26th, marked the start of Final Fridays, a new event series at the David Owsley Museum of Art! Every last Friday of the month the museum will be hosting an array of Final Friday events from 5-9 pm, which will focus on Pecha Kucha presentations by local arts and culture organizations and individuals. Pecha Kucha, which is short for Japanese chit-chat, consists of many short presentations which consist of twenty slides for twenty seconds each, bringing each presentation to a total of six minutes and forty seconds. Pecha Kucha presentation are meant to spark conversation and discussion while delivering information in a fast-paced and energetic manner.

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This was my first experience with Pecha Kucha presentations and I found it to be very refreshing in comparison to traditional lectures. The presentations were just long enough to spark your interest in the presenting organization and give you the information to learn more, but not enough time for thoughts to start drifting. No matter what, every twenty seconds the slide changed and very quickly we were on to the next presenter. This week there were presentations on six topics with the theme of Embark.

The presenters were:

  1. Union City Arts Festival– Immersive learning project helping Union City start up a brand new arts festival that will take place from October 10-12.
  2. Muncie Maker District– Helping fuel the “maker movement” of artists, craftsmen, inventors, and entrepreneurs in Muncie.
  3. PROJECTiONE– Design/fabrication studio started by Ball State architecture grads, which create large-scale projects that blend architectural design and art.
  4. From Curating to Creating– Muncie Public Library is breaking through the boundaries of traditional libraries by developing Indiana’s first paperless library branch, Connection Corner, that connects patrons to new media.
  5. ArtsWalk– First Thursday arts and culture events that takes place in Downtown Muncie.
  6. Drawing and Small Sculpture Show– The David Owsley Museum revisits the historical Drawing and Small Sculpture Shows through its new special exhibition, “Great Things from Small Packages: The Drawing and Small Sculpture Shows.”

One of the Union City Arts Festival presenters, Katie Norman, commented on her experience by saying, “The pecha kucha format gave a fresh new spin on a presentation that could have easily been twice as long. Having a format like this where you have very limited time to explain yourself, really makes you get down to the basics. It makes you ask yourself questions as presenters about what is really important and what do you really want the viewer to take away from this experience. I think that considering all of these elements we were able to provide an entertaining fresh look on Union City and the festival that will be happening there this weekend. “

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Caricature of DOMA Director, Robert La France

Besides the Pecha Pucha lectures, which many appreciated as a new and exciting experience, guests were able to enjoy refreshments in the sculpture court, mingling about the galleries, and have a caricature portrait drawn of them.

The Muncie Public Library Connection Corner also provided a 3-D printer demonstration that took a scan of DOMA’s “Rising Day,” by Adolph Alexander Weinman, to create a miniature version of the sculpture in plastic. Drew Shermeta, who led the demonstration, explained that the initial scan takes the volume of the object and segments it into small layers that the 3-D printer then precisely builds up by melting plastic according to the digital file. Shermata encouraged everyone who is interested to inquire at the library about 3-D printing, which is an open and inexpensive resource to the public. He said that one of the most interesting 3-D printing projects that came in recently was from a young boy who wanted to 3-D print a helmet from the videogame Halo

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The first Final Friday event went off successfully and was filled with conversation about what’s happening right now in the arts and culture scene of Muncie and the surrounding areas. We hope that you can join us for the next Final Friday event (in this case Nearly Final Friday) which is the evening of October 24th.