TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

Speakers

Seth Tichenor: Why philosophy?

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“Why phi­los­o­phy?” Seth Tichenor has been answer­ing that ques­tion for more than 20 years.

For Seth, it’s just the way he thinks. He remem­bers hav­ing his first philo­soph­i­cal thought at age 3, but it wasn’t until col­lege that he real­ized it was what he want­ed to do.

“I was talk­ing with a friend,” he recalls, “when he point­ed out that what­ev­er I do, I’m going to approach it from a philo­soph­i­cal per­spec­tive.”

Seth, a 2018 TEDxSalem speak­er, real­ized that he would always ask ques­tions such as “why do we do it this way?” “how might oth­ers do this?” and “even if we could, should we?”

Now he talks phi­los­o­phy to any­one will­ing to lis­ten, whether it’s part of his work as a phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sor, life­guard, swim instruc­tor or dri­ver for vis­it­ing musi­cal acts.

Seth describes him­self as an Ore­gon native and a for­mer All-Amer­i­can swim­mer liv­ing in Asto­ria with his part­ner Gad. He finds a way to use all his pas­sions to bet­ter the com­mu­ni­ty. He spends a lot of his time as a life­guard and swim instruc­tor. With all the water sur­round­ing Asto­ria, Seth sees it as a pub­lic ser­vice.

But the Philosophar­i­an project is his pas­sion.

The Philosophar­i­an project aims to bring phi­los­o­phy into the lives of every­day peo­ple. It start­ed with pro­mot­ing local phi­los­o­phy talks and grew into a larg­er project that includ­ed a road trip of prac­tic­ing “guer­ril­la phi­los­o­phy tac­tics.”

Seth bemoans the fact that study­ing phi­los­o­phy doesn’t finan­cial­ly pen­cil out for most stu­dents. The Philosophar­i­an vision treats phi­los­o­phy as a nor­mal part of the real world. It was inspired by stu­dents who were inter­est­ed in phi­los­o­phy, but who didn’t have room for it in their class sched­ules and Gad’s back­ground in Alter­na­tive Edu­ca­tion and Kines­thet­ic Learn­ing.

In his free time, Seth stays active with hik­ing and water sports. He is a com­pet­i­tive swim­mer in mid­dle dis­tance but­ter­fly and freestyle.

“I’m like Seabis­cuit,” he said, com­par­ing his water skills to the race horse. “I’ve got finesse.”

His swim back­ground also influ­ences the way he thinks. Seth describes his world and his phi­los­o­phy as being dynam­ic and emerg­ing, much like water.

“Water makes its way into a lot of my think­ing,” he said. “My class­room looks out over the Colum­bia, and I will make a ref­er­ence to water at least once a week in my lec­tures.”

Seth also enjoys paint­ing and doing cos­tum­ing work with Gad. He has been a pro­fes­sor of phi­los­o­phy for 23 years and teach­es at Clat­sop Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege. He was named teacher of the year in 2015. He has an M.A. in Phi­los­o­phy of Reli­gion from Boston Uni­ver­si­ty and is a PhD can­di­date at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaii at Manoa in Com­par­a­tive Phi­los­o­phy.

If you have ever won­dered how phi­los­o­phy might be rel­e­vant to you, come see Seth at TEDxSalem and expe­ri­ence his guer­ril­la phi­los­o­phy tac­tics for your­self.

Speak­er: Seth Tichenor

Favorite Book: The Glass Bead Game by Her­mann Hesse: “It real­ly dis­cuss­es the strengths and lim­its of for­mal intel­lec­tu­al aca­d­e­m­ic work.” Or Can­nery Row by John Stein­beck.

Favorite Music: Chet Baker’s jazz, Arcade Fire and art rock, old punk, under­ground hip hop such as Dead Prez.

Favorite Food: “Thai or Indi­an food with vibrant tastes – I’m aes­thet­ic, but not a good sense of smell. I also got a taste for that kind of food while attend­ing grad school in Hawaii.”

Favorite Drink: “I’m very fond of Fort George Vor­tex IPA, or a well-made Man­hat­tan or a Moscow mule.”

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Evelin Dacker: Let’s talk about sex, bay-bee!

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Dr. Evelin Dack­er wants to talk about sex, and she’s not afraid of your hang-ups because she is in it for your health.

“I feel like if peo­ple are going to black­list me because I’m talk­ing about sex, that’s OK,” says Evelin, “because some­body has to do it.”

Evelin, pro­nounced “Ev-uh-LEEN,” is a doc­tor of fam­i­ly med­i­cine and the own­er of VIDA Inte­gra­tive Med­i­cine and Behav­ioral Health. Born in Cal­i­for­nia and raised in New York, Dack­er attend­ed school at Case West­ern Reserve Uni­ver­si­ty in Cleve­land, Ohio. She moved to Salem 21 years ago, when she came to work for NW Human Ser­vices at the West Salem Clin­ic doing com­mu­ni­ty med­i­cine (Fam­i­ly Med­i­cine and Obstet­rics).

Sex is a large part of holis­tic human health, says the 52-year-old, but very few are will­ing to even acknowl­edge it. Dack­er is though, and she’s ready to get your atten­tion.

“I’m a loud­mouth,” she says. “I’m not scared to have a con­ver­sa­tion with peo­ple about it.”

The sta­tus quo is not get­ting it done, she says. With­out frank and open dia­logue, the risk of dis­ease and abuse only increase. That’s why talk­ing about sex with her patients is part of her inte­gra­tive care.

This isn’t the first time she’s been out­spo­ken, either. It’s part of her per­son­al­i­ty. Dack­er was a mem­ber of the Cher­ry City Der­by Girls (now Cher­ry City Roller Der­by) from 2009–2011, where she was apt­ly called “Dr. Smack’r.”

And now, cre­at­ing a “sex-pos­i­tive cul­ture” is her mis­sion.

“Even if I just stop one or two peo­ple” from suf­fer­ing, she says, “then I’ve done my job.”

Speak­er: Evelin Dack­er

Name Pro­nounced: “Ev-uh-LEEN”

Favorite Movie: Heat, and also The Shel­ter­ing Sky; dra­mas that pro­voke thought. “I like to go deep with things.”

Favorite Book: The Unbear­able Light­ness of Being, by Milan Kun­dera

Favorite Music: 1980s new wave, alter­na­tive and jazz; also EDM, Bol­ly­wood and Latin danc­ing music.

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Kaydee Kreitlow: Sanctuary amidst skyscrapers

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“Sanc­tu­ary is a state of mind,” says Kaydee Kre­it­low from behind a lat­te dur­ing a Sun­day after­noon rush at Archive Cof­fee & Bar.

“But the built envi­ron­ment can either encour­age or dis­cour­age that.”

Amid the bus­tle and noise of bused tables, the 34-year-old Salem res­i­dent and licensed archi­tect recalls a moment dur­ing her trav­els in Europe when she says she found her sanc­tu­ary, at an urban renew­al project in the Nether­lands called Silo­dam.

A for­mer run-down dam and silo in an indus­tri­al area, the site had been repur­posed and restored as for­ward-think­ing liv­ing spaces ris­ing direct­ly above the waters of the Ams­ter­dam har­bor. It was not a typ­i­cal place to find seren­i­ty, she says, but sit­ting alone there on a deck and tak­ing in the sights, some­thing moved her.

“I had this moment of pure joy and hap­pi­ness for being there in this spot,” she says. “There was nobody around, it was just me and the build­ing and the water.”

Knowl­edge of archi­tec­ture can help dis­cov­er sanc­tu­ary in non-tra­di­tion­al places in the built envi­ron­ment, accord­ing to Kre­it­low, and cre­ate it our­selves in our own sur­round­ings.

For Kre­it­low, who grad­u­at­ed from Pratt Insti­tute in 2006, archi­tec­ture has always been a pas­sion. Hav­ing grown up in a geo­des­ic dome in Beaver­ton, she has always had an eye for what’s pos­si­ble with cre­ative lay­out and design, she says. She jokes that when she trav­els, all her pho­tos are of build­ings.

“The way that I look at the world is dif­fer­ent from most peo­ple,” she says. “When I’m in a space, I appre­ci­ate the lay­out of the space, think­ing of how some­thing could have been done dif­fer­ent­ly.”

Accord­ing to Kre­it­low, archi­tec­ture has a unique abil­i­ty to influ­ence our sense of peace.

Dur­ing her trav­els, Kre­it­low spent a few months in Rome where she would wan­der the streets of the ancient city, using a famous Giambat­tista Nol­li engraved map from 1748 as a guide.

“Rome is a city of 500 church­es,” she says. “Almost from any street you’re in, you’re going to see anoth­er church.”

It was a pro­found expe­ri­ence, she says, sens­ing the seren­i­ty radi­at­ing out­ward from the foun­tains and ancient edi­fices.

From the streets of the Eter­nal City to a Salem alley­way, even to a sin­gle bath­room stall, says Kre­it­low, sanc­tu­ary can be made any­where.

“It’s going to be dif­fer­ent for every­one,” she says, but there are a few spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics all sanc­tu­ar­ies pos­sess.“Sanc­tu­ary is a time and a moment where you’re very much in the present.”

“You can get that in any city.”

Speak­er: Kaydee Kre­it­low

Pro­fes­sion: Licensed archi­tect

Pet: How­land, Ger­man Shep­herd / Retriev­er mix

Hob­bies: Draw­ing, sewing, DIY

Favorite Movie: Robin Hood: Men in Tights — “If you’re watch­ing it and you’re not pay­ing atten­tion, you miss some of the humor. I like that.” Also Rata­touille.

Favorite Music: Alter­na­tive, tech­no and ambi­ent music, includ­ing the music of Eman­ci­pa­tor – “I’m the kind of per­son who needs back­ground music all the time. It helps me focus.”

Favorite Book: The Foun­tain­head, by Ayn Rand — “It reminds me to always do my best… I can sep­a­rate the ide­al­ism of Howard Roarke (the book’s pro­tag­o­nist) from the one-per­cent phi­los­o­phy.”

Favorite Meal: The roast­ed Whiskey Riv­er salmon and gar­lic mashed pota­toes at the Best Lit­tle Road­house in Salem

Favorite Drink: The moji­to by Giles at the Hos­tel Tevere in Ver­mont

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

TEDxSalem announces 2018 speakers

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It’s the moment that we’ve all been wait­ing for since last year’s TEDxSalem rev­o­lu­tion. 

We have nine new speak­ers for 2018, plus a few sur­prise ones you will be hear­ing about soon. 

“Every­one is going to step through the look­ing glass and expe­ri­ence some­thing new,” said co-cura­tor Car­lee Wright about this year’s line up. 

TEDxSalem is proud to intro­duce the class of TEDxSalem V.

Cayla Skillin-Brauchle

Cay­la  Skillin-Brauch­le believes art has the capac­i­ty to allow us to envi­sion and prac­tice life mean­ing­ful­ly.  She exhibits draw­ings, instal­la­tions and per­formance art inter­nation­al­ly and lives and works in Salem, where she is Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Art at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty. She joins TEDxSalem as our third Artist-in-Res­i­dence.

Evelin Dacker

Dr. Evelin Dack­er has been prac­tic­ing med­i­cine in Salem since 1996. Her inter­ests are in women’s health, holis­tic and inte­gra­tive med­i­cine and sex­u­al health. In 2005, she opened up Salem’s first holis­tic med­i­cine clin­ic, VIDA Inte­gra­tive Med­i­cine. When not prac­tic­ing med­i­cine, Evelin enjoys being in nature, trav­el, dance and spend­ing time with her fam­i­ly and friends.

 

Jackson Rayne

A head­lin­ing illu­sion­ist, TV per­son­al­i­ty, and world record hold­er, Jack­son Rayne walks through walls, defies death, and lives life to its fullest. His magic and world record escapes have been fea­tured on nation­al tele­vi­sion in sev­er­al coun­tries around the world. With his engag­ing charm, high-ener­gy mag­i­cal per­for­mances, and obses­sion for push­ing the bound­aries, Jack­son inspires and con­nects with his audi­ence in unfor­get­table ways.

Kaydee Kreitlow

Kaydee Kre­it­low grew up in a geo­des­ic dome in Beaver­ton, Ore­gon. From there she moved to NYC to study archi­tec­ture, trav­eled, and dab­bled in con­struc­tion. She works as an archi­tect in Salem and spends most of her time try­ing to wear out her ener­getic dog. Kaydee’s talk will delve into Urban Sanc­tu­ar­ies and how to find sanc­tu­ary in the built envi­ron­ment.

Laura Mack

Lau­ra Mack  is an artist, edu­ca­tor, and art edu­ca­tion advo­cate that lives inSalem, Ore­gon with her hus­band and two boys. She makes mixed media col­lages and draw­ings, teach­es art and cre­ativ­i­ty at Chemeke­ta Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege, and coor­di­nates the vol­un­teer-dri­ven Art Lit­er­a­cy pro­gram at Salem Heights Ele­men­tary School. Her TED talk is about get­ting cre­ative with the val­ue of art edu­ca­tion.

Marie Greene

Marie Greene is a knitwear design­er, writer, knit­ting instruc­tor and inter­na­tion­al speak­er with empha­sis on fiber arts and slow fash­ion. She has spent her life embrac­ing time-hon­ored process­es and mak­ing them more acces­si­ble with today’s tech­nol­o­gy. Marie is the leader of the Salem, Ore­gon chap­ter for Ris­ing Tide Soci­ety, a com­mu­ni­ty for cre­ative entre­pre­neurs, and is the own­er of Olive Knits, knitwear design.

Rose Barker

As a Cer­ti­fied Risk Man­age­ment Con­sul­tant, Rose Bark­er is an expert on iden­ti­ty theft. She is a Salem, Ore­gon native and avid­ly sup­ports fos­ter­ing local com­mu­ni­ty, but also loves serv­ing the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. She has spent sev­er­al years in Latin Amer­i­ca on more than 20 inter­na­tion­al trips. When not help­ing busi­ness­es and employ­ees, you can find Rose gar­den­ing, cycling, swim­ming across the Willamette Riv­er, vol­un­teer­ing, and play­ing with her adorable dog, Foxy.

Seth Tichenor

Seth Tichenor is a teacher, schol­ar, pub­lic lec­tur­er, and cham­pi­on for the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of philo­soph­i­cal dis­course and reflec­tion. He has been teach­ing phi­los­o­phy and lead­ing philo­soph­i­cal dis­cus­sion groups at col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties as well as to the gen­er­al pub­lic for over 20 years. In 2009, with his part­ner Gad Perez, Seth estab­lished “Philoso­far­i­an – a guer­ril­la phi­los­o­phy project” as a way of bring­ing philo­soph­i­cal inquiry, reflec­tion, and dis­course to every­one in their com­mu­ni­ty and beyond.

Stay tuned to hear more about our speak­ers and the hand­ful of mys­tery ones who will join the list.

Save the Date: TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Ear­ly bird tick­ets go on sale Sept. 1. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.

Kelsey Juliana: Millennials will make a difference

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JulianaWhen it comes to stand­ing up to cli­mate change Kelsey Juliana is relent­less, and expects you to be, too.

“If you’re won­der­ing if you’re doing enough, then the answer is prob­a­bly not,” said Juliana, 20, a col­lege stu­dent cur­rent­ly work­ing with Part­ners for Sus­tain­able Schools to teach chil­dren about sus­tain­abil­i­ty and the envi­ron­ment.

“If you’re not uncom­fort­able, you’re not being hon­est about what we’re up against.”

Grow­ing up in Eugene, Juliana said her pas­sion for the envi­ron­ment was instilled in her by her par­ents from a young age, and from a young age she’s quick­ly ratch­eted up her activism, from writ­ing reports in mid­dle school to tak­ing part in protest march­es, to now being part of a fed­er­al law­suit to force the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment to act to pre­vent the con­se­quences of cli­mate change.

For her TED talk, Juliana will share her expe­ri­ence being part of the land­mark US Fed­er­al cli­mate law­suit, and how it has rein­forced her belief in mil­len­ni­als to change the world.

Being a part of the pro­ceed­ings, being in the court­room to attend the hear­ings has been a “huge hon­or, and a huge priv­i­lege,” she said.

On Novem­ber 10 of last year in a momen­tous deci­sion, a fed­er­al court in Eugene ruled against the government’s motion to dis­miss, paving the way for Juliana and 20 oth­er youth plain­tiffs ages 9 to 20 to sue the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to take deci­sive actions to lim­it car­bon emis­sions. The core argu­ment – Allow­ing cli­mate change to hap­pen is in fact depriv­ing the youngest gen­er­a­tion of its con­sti­tu­tion­al right to life, lib­er­ty and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness, and is there­fore fun­da­men­tal­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.

“It’s beau­ti­ful… that [lit­i­ga­tion has] been the way to seek jus­tice for any mar­gin­al group,” she said.

“We are per­son­al­ly affect­ed by cli­mate change,” Juliana said. “We are not okay with the fact that peo­ple allow­ing this and caus­ing this are elect­ed to pro­tect us from harm.”

It feels fair to say that fed­er­al lit­i­ga­tion is not the kind of child­hood mem­o­ry most peo­ple have. But that’s pre­cise­ly the point, accord­ing to Juliana. Mil­len­ni­als are not the dis­tract­ed slack­ers of media por­tray­al, but are, like her, active and aware. They need to be tak­en seri­ous­ly as agents of change, she said.

“Young peo­ple don’t just have cute pic­tures of polar bears,” she said, “they have real ideas and inno­v­a­tive solu­tions and they need them to be tak­en seri­ous­ly.”

And they don’t need your sym­pa­thy.

“Applaud us but join us.”

At a per­son­al lev­el, it’s her pas­sion for chil­dren that moti­vates Kelsey Juliana. Teach­ing school chil­dren about the envi­ron­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty is her way of being true to her­self, which is the key to empow­er­ing each of us to make a dif­fer­ence, she said.

“Every­one always asks, ‘What can I do?’ But instead of just call­ing con­gress­men, reflect on your­self,” she said.

“Who are you, what makes you hap­py? Then tran­si­tion that to: What do you love, what do you care about? What kind of world do you want to see in 20 years?”

“Peo­ple con­tribute very dif­fer­ent things,” she said. “Each of us has a unique gift that we can offer.” 

 - Learn more about the case and the plain­tiff’s legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, Our Chil­dren’s Trust, here.

 

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.

 

S. Renee Mitchell: Art as survival

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For S. Renee Mitchell, art is sur­vival.

This is not an over­state­ment.

For 25 years, Mitchell worked as a suc­cess­ful news­pa­per jour­nal­ist, most recent­ly for The Ore­gon­ian. This high­ly pub­lic role cov­ered up her inner strug­gle — the doubts, depres­sion, self-loathing.

Then she redis­cov­ered her cre­ativ­i­ty, and that saved her life, she says.

“Even­tu­al­ly, I came to a point where I need­ed to leave behind every­thing I pre­tend­ed to be, all the roles I played so well, all the belief sys­tems that no longer worked for me, and get back in tune with how to live my live authen­ti­cal­ly and with con­scious inten­tion,” she said in an email. “Art was in the cen­ter of that jour­ney that brought me back to myself.”
Now, Mitchell is a full-time teacher artist, design­er, poet and play­wright, among many oth­er cre­ative roles.
Mitchell and the upcom­ing TEDxSalem event may be a per­fect match. She calls her­self a Cre­ative Rev­o­lu­tion­ist, and works to help oth­ers find their cre­ative cen­ters so that they can “gath­er up and move on.”
Want to learn how to tap into your own cre­ative pow­er­house? Get your tick­ets here.