We Speak English is a project with the broad aim of organising occasional social events in Zürich, Switzerland.
Without wishing to push a language agenda, it quickly became apparent to me that in a city where 30% of the population do not hold Swiss citizenship, there is a lack of non-mainstream events for people not fluent in German (or more typically Swiss German) and English is often everyone's common tongue. This combined with a basic urge to organise nice things for the community, lead to We Speak English.
The first event was Science vs Art — a free evening of short films and lectures that sought to combine entertainment and education, in a cosy bar setting. After obtaining support from film directors and distributors who agreed that I could show their films without charge, I gathered some local speakers who generously gave talks on a range of topics. The final schedule included movies from Miranda July, Spike Jonze and Gus Van Sant, shorts about Trap-Jaw Ants, drunk bees and Bigfoot hunters, and lectures on scientific visualisation, things learned from making games, colours of a black hole and the placebo effect. The full programme with acknowledgements is available here.
Future plans are to hold a board games contest, an evening of storytelling and perhaps a sports dance-off. We’ll see.
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