Pecha Kucha is a Japanese term for a form of public presentation, where the presenter shows images and can speak to each for up to twenty seconds, if he or she so wishes. It can be a powerful communication tool, and occasionally, a life-changing experience.

I was teaching a class of about thirty adult students – they were mostly in their twenties – in a tertiary Communication course, on the use of Pecha Kucha, when one student, a quiet, 20-year-old young man, asked if he could make a presentation to the class, there and then. I accepted his offer. 

He inserted a USB into the room computer and projected onto a large screen one image only – a photograph of two young men kissing one another, fully, on the mouth. There was a gasp from the audience, then silence, and in the silence, he turned to face them and said, “I have just come out.”

There was another gasp from his fellow students, then one student clapped, then another, and another, until they were all standing and clapping. He sat down without saying another word.