For some of us, "home" is a faraway place, but for Michael Sharp, it is the place where he was born and grew up in, and where he is now raising his son. In his presentation, he describes the places that have shaped him and memories from his childhood in Alexandria, as well as upstate New York and California. He wonders what our children will remember about the places they grow up in.

Something remarkable has been going on at Four Mile Run Park, a trail and waterway that passes through urban industrial areas in northern Virginia, USA. After decades of pollution and neglect, through the efforts of volunteers, the area is coming back to life. Kurt Moser, president of the Four Mile Run Conservatory Foundation, details how we can sometimes transform nature around us to positive effect. 

In his presentation, Bodhi Ling Patel encourages us to let our inner light shine and to take care of our body, mind, and spirit. As a high school student concerned about depression and suicide among young people, he strives to live life to the fullest and spread the message that we all have a beautiful light within us.

In the summer of 2018, Ling-Yun Tang spent 2 months in Berlin with her children and fell in love with the public playgrounds. As she crisscrossed the city visiting numerous parks and playgrounds, she was impressed by how well play was integrated into public spaces, and learned a valuable lesson about letting go when it came to letting her children explore and take risks on their own.

"Place can be the freedom to explore where roads can't go," says Katie Goode, who explores the theme of inner place in her inspiring, and at times, funny, presentation. She shares some tips and small blessings that have come her way, that have helped her to move to a place where she feels present, clear, and sure.  

For 30 years, Leopoldo Díaz -Moure was in a place of fear. Like a block of ice, he felt frozen and numb. Leo takes us on an inner journey through emotional landscapes that we all inhabit and shares how he was able to move from a place of fear to a place of freedom. What place would you like to be?

Megan Brennan Wood is an attorney and Foreign Service spouse who has traveled around the world with her family, befriending animals wherever she goes. Hear Megan tell the tales of the dogs, cats, pigs, foxes, and other animals she met and whose images she captured in Myanmar, where she lived for two years, and in her travels in southeast Asia. Don't miss the hilarious closing image of (spoiler alert:) her cat as Donald Trump!

"Don't give up on your dreams, and give uncertainty a chance."

Michelle Claire shares stories about the risks that she has taken in her life, and that have brought her from San Antonio, Texas, to Washington, D.C. -- everything from white-river rafting, telling her mother she wanted to become an artist, and personal decisions about love and friendship. Speaking on PechaKucha has been on her bucket list for a long time-- and we're glad she took the risk, at PechaKucha Alexandria Vol.1. 

Mamatjan Juma is an artist who was trained in the style of Socialist Realism, in which ideology was paramount. He began questioning this notion and exploring more abstract styles after his move to the United States. Through "snapshots" of his paintings, he shows the development of his style, where beauty, balance, and limitlessness are expressed without the need to stand for an ideology. 

Emily Atwood is an architect who answered an ad for someone to draw house plans, and ended up documenting hundreds of empty houses as they were preparing to be sold. In her presentation, she takes us inside the homes, guiding us to see the unexpected beauty in their architectural details and the private worlds of the owners who occupied them.

Monica Sanchez and Kate Vasiloff are two friends who, a year ago, would never have imagined that they would quit their jobs and start a business together. Yet here they are, at PechaKucha Alexandria Vol.1, having done just that AND finishing each other's sentences. In their presentation they share their entrepreneurial journey, including some fascinating insights from their first project to document public opinion about rights to abortion in El Savador.

Writing a book, Aleksandra Corwin says, is like falling in love. It involves opening up the most vulnerable part of us and sharing it with others. As a book editor, Aleksandra has helped countless authors go through this journey, by being the first witness and doula to their story. Her presentation is about this process, but it is also about a critical time in her life when, for the first time, the role was reversed and she needed to accept her own vulnerability.