I launched the Olio event at the Charlottesville Community Design Center (CCDC) in February 2009 with a few simple rules and goals. The name Olio means a miscellaneous mixture or hodgepodge, and also refers to a program of variety acts in theatre. The event would therefore gather a medley of ideas. I invited ten individuals to make digital presentations of 20 slides and present them to a public audience, similar to the popular Pecha Kucha format. The slides advanced automatically after 20 seconds to limit each presentation to a concise 6 minutes and 40 seconds. With significant efforts to promote the first edition of Olio, the event attracted over 130 people who assembled, shared, conversed, networked, debated, and even commissioned new work. After its recent 10th edition, Olio continues to garner some of the largest and most diverse audience turnouts at the CCDC.

Photography by Arne Morin and Jie Huang.
Posters for the event are by local Charlottesville designers (credited in the titles).

Watch Olio presentations on YouTube, see the link below: