Pecha Kucha is visual storytelling format where each presenter prepares and shares exactly 20 slides. The presentation is set to automatically advance every 20 seconds, ensuring a fun and fast-paced night of engaging talks. Get a glimpse into the past, current, and future musings of folks doing creative, inspiring, and unique work here in Baltimore!

Talks begin at 7pm, Current Space Garden Bar open at 6:30pm

2025 Dates:
- April 16 (the very first event of the 2025 outdoor season!)
- May 28
- June 25
- July 23
- August 28
- September 25
- October 23

August Speakers:
- Alix Fenhagen
- Anna Kroll
- Katie Pumphrey
- Margaux Kenwood
- Sam Pohl

Alix Fenhagen is going into her third season as Manager of the Baker Artist Portfolios program. With a background in arts management, marketing, development, and theatre practice, Alix has consciously combined her passion and creative thinking as an artist with a strategic and collaborative approach to promoting and sustaining artistic endeavors. Alix has worked as a digital marketing and PR strategist and consultant in the arts, helping artists and organizations promote their work to reach and grow audiences.

In addition to her work as an arts administrator, Alix is a multifaceted theatre artist, who has had the privilege to work with many of Baltimore’s wonderful theatre companies and artists. She is currently collaborating on VESPER, a devised theatrical performance installation exploring humanity's relationship to the night, directed by Jarod Hanson, which will show at the Voxel this October. Alix believes that arts and culture are deeply woven into the fabric of any community and that artists are integral to continually shaping and enhancing the creative landscape of Baltimore. She holds an M.A.A.A from Goucher College where she wrote extensively about how active artistic practice enhances adaptive leadership on both a psychological and neurological level. She also holds a B.S. in Theatre from Northwestern University.

Anna Kroll is a dancer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist. Her performance work has been shown at No Theme Festival (Poughkeepsie, NY), in Philadelphia theaters, rivers, and subway underpasses, at FringeArts’ Scratch Night, Open Call Guerilla Outdoor Performance Festival, Invisible River’s Schuylkill River Arts Day, Cathy Weis' Sundays on Broadway (NYC), and Danspace’s DraftWork series (NYC). She’s created livestreams and Instagram-based work for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and meditations on placemaking and bodies of water commissioned by Painted Bride Art Center’s “Re-place-ing Philadelphia.” She was the Fall 2024 VisArts Bresler and Montgomery College Collaborative Artist-in-Residence in Rockville, Maryland.

Her collaborations with Chloë Engel have appeared in re:semblance at New Media Artspace (NYC/online), Spark IV and V (Baltimore/online), The Mind on Fire Variety Show (Baltimore/online), and Tendon Magazine.

She holds an MFA in Intermedia and Digital Art from UMBC, where she teaches, and also works at Arts & Ideas Sudbury School.

Katie Pumphrey (b.1987) is an American interdisciplinary artist and ultramarathon open water swimmer. Pulling from her experiences in the water, her paintings, sculptures, and installations use abstraction and imagery to investigate our anxieties, fears, and how our imagination plays tricks on us. Incorporating a bit of humor, Pumphrey explores these tensions and the connectedness between human instincts and play. She has a Bachelors of Fine Art in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her works have been exhibited in galleries across the United States, including solo exhibitions in Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Key West.

On June 25th, 2024, Katie Pumphrey became the first person to complete the Bay to Baltimore swim, a 24 mile swim from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Other notable swims include the English Channel (2015, 2022), around the island of Manhattan (2017), and the Catalina Channel (2018, 2024)— those three swims make up the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming. Pumphrey was the 194th person (73rd woman) in the world to achieve that honor. Her work is deeply connected to this aspect of her life. Pumphrey lives and works in Baltimore, MD.

Margaux Kenwood
Margaux is a scientist, with a love for visual communication of all things brain-related. She completed her doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, where she studied the functional and molecular basis of early risk for anxiety disorders in the frontal cortex. She found her passion for science communication there, where she led the neuroscience outreach program (featuring real human brains!). During her postdoctoral studies, she worked on understanding the biological basis for depression, with an emphasis on why it looks different in different people. She also taught statistics and neuroanatomy, focusing on using intuitive visualizations to help students understand complex topics. She now works in communications, with the goal of bringing a psychedelic to market for the treatment of anxiety and depression.

Sam Pohl is a soft-hearted cinnamon roll who graduated from the Lexington Healing Arts Academy at the top of their class with a passion for holistic care. With a bachelor's degree in somatic psychology, Sam came to massage practice with an understanding of how the mind-body works to either hold or move energy and how trauma can be stored in the body. Sam works to delve deep through slow and controlled, nervous system-regulating manual work. They are skilled in working with neurodiverse populations and strive to make massage accessible to anyone who may want to try it. Sam is passionate about the body in a nerdy way and believes in collaborating with their clients to create the safest possible environment for healing to occur. Sam offers Craniosacral Therapy as well as Dr. Vodder's Manual Lymphatic Drainage in addition to their manual work.

Past Speakers
July Speakers:
- Danielle d'Amico
- J Taran Diamond
- Julia Laurie Hammid
- Kevin Sherry
- Leonardo Martinez-Diaz
- Tessara Morgan Farley and Luke Farley

Danielle d'Amico – multimedia artist
Danielle is a multimedia artist working with video, installation and immersive technologies. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the International Symposium for Electronic Art, through the Ars Electronica .ART Global Gallery, and at PostSensorium RIXC Art Science Festival. In Baltimore, her work has been exhibited at Gallery CA, Gormley Gallery, and UMBC’s Center for Art, Design & Visual Culture. Danielle earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2021. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Media Production at Towson University.

J Taran Diamond is a metalsmith and craft educator based in Baltimore, Maryland. Diamond holds an MFA from the University of Georgia, in addition to a BFA from the University of North Texas. Diamond’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at New York City Jewelry Week, the Czong institute of Contemporary Art in Gimpo, South Korea, and the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. Diamond has also completed residencies at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and the Baltimore Jewelry Center, where she is currently a Teaching Fellow and Studio Manager. Outside of the studio, Diamond is an advocate for black people in the fields of craft and academia, and works to help achieve equity and accessibility within those fields.

Julia Hammid
Julia grew up in NYC & upstate NY, a first-generation American of parents who Immigrated from Europe to escape WWII. She has been making things all her life, out of fabric, paper, glass, wood, metal or any old stuff she has around. Having retired from full time employment a few years ago, besides making and fixing stuff, she coaches elders (and others) in becoming more comfortable using technology.

Tessara Morgan Farley and Luke Farley, Truepenny Projects
Originally from Minnesota, Tessara Morgan Farley is a freelance theater artist currently living and working in Baltimore. She enjoys creating fantastical new work in small spaces with local artists on a tight budget. She has directed, produced, stage managed and designed throughout the Midwest including Cedar Rapids, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee. Since moving to Baltimore in 2017, she has worked with Acme Corp., Single Carrot, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Silver Spring Stage, BROS, Submersive Productions and more. She is also a co-founder and Theater Producer of Truepenny Projects. During the day, Tessara is the Director of Production at The Voxel. tessaralaynmorgan.com.

Originally from New Jersey, Luke Farley has been a Baltimore based artist since 2017. In 2019, he graduated with an MFA in Painting from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School at MICA. Mainly working in painting, his work has been shown around the United States for the past decade. Farley is a founder of an interdisciplinary arts organization, Truepenny Projects. As a curator and designer, his productions include the world building for “Lyra and the Ferocious Beast” and curation in “Mark and Signal” at Zo Gallery, among others.

Truepenny was founded in 2016 as a pop-up theatre company in Milwaukee, WI The core purpose of Truepenny Projects is to collaborate with contemporary artists to create vital artistic experiences. We are committed to the production of new works of art through a wide range of media, meaning we produce new work for the stage as well as the gallery space. Truepenny is devoted to promoting new artists because they are the people exposing the stories of what it means to be a human in this moment.

Kevin Sherry – author, illustrator, and performer
Kevin Sherry has written and illustrated graphic novels and chapter books for Scholastic, picture books for Penguin Random House, and most recently, a kids' role-playing game guide for Andrews McMeel. He is a man of many interests: a chef, a cyclist, a screenprinter, and a performer of hilarious puppet shows for kids and adults. He performs at over 100 schools & libraries every year. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with his wife, daughter, and two cats.

Leonardo Martinez-Diaz (he/him) - Founder and Director, Crow’s Nest
Leo is a native of Mexico City and Chicago. He is an author, scholar, public servant, and climate activist who has worked for nearly two decades in the policy arena fighting for climate action, both in non-profit organizations and the federal government. His most recent book, with Alice C. Hill, is Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How to Prepare for the Coming Climate Disruption (Oxford University Press, 2019 and 2022). He is an amateur photographer.

The Crow's Nest is an art incubator that provides work space, social space, and exhibition space for anyone seeking to address the twin challenges of climate change and environmental justice through artistic expression and cultural production, especially radical and public art.

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Interesting in sharing at a future event? Please email currentspace@gmail.com with the subject line "Pecha Kucha Proposal" – include a short description of what you'd like to talk about and a link to your website (if relevant).

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This outdoor event will be held in our rear courtyard. Enter through the alley at 421 Tyson Street. Rain or shine.
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Accessibility and Getting Here: https://www.currentspace.com/contact
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Consider becoming a sustaining member of Current Space – membership starts at just $5/month! Supporters ($10/month) get half price advance tickets and Benefactors ($25/month) get free advance tickets.

Current Space is an artist-run gallery, studio, outdoor performance space, and garden bar; nourishing an ongoing dialogue between artists, activists, performers, designers, curators, and thinkers. Operating since November 2004, we are committed to showcasing, developing, and broadening the reach of artists locally and internationally.

Thank You
Programs at Current Space are made possible in part by supporting members like you; the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation; The Creative Baltimore Fund, which is a grant program funded by the Mayor’s Office and the City of Baltimore; and The Rouse Family Foundation.