TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

announcement

Teressa Raiford: #blacklivesmatter was just the beginning

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Don't Shoot PDXIt can be easy to over­look Ter­es­sa Raiford in a crowd­ed room, and that seems to suit her quite fine. Short in stature, she is soft-spo­ken and unas­sum­ing in per­son, often with gaze avert­ed and the occa­sion­al half-smile.

There’s a notice­able hint of lone­li­ness in Raiford’s demeanor that the com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er and leader of Don’t Shoot Port­land does not try to hide, one of the ironies of lead­er­ship that she accepts as part of the job.

“I couldn’t love too much,” said Raiford, 46, speak­er at TEDx Salem’s REVOLUTIONS event.  “You’re not avail­able to pets or fam­i­ly or any­body.”

“It’s real­ly bad, but it’s most­ly for the safe­ty of the peo­ple we love.”

From online harass­ment and threats against her life, to an arrest and tri­al for dis­or­der­ly con­duct, Raiford accepts and puts aside the costs of doing her job. A gen­er­a­tional Ore­gon­ian who traces her family’s roots in the state back to the 1880s, she spent her youth in and out of fos­ter care from the age of 7 through 18. It’s one rea­son she often feels out of place, in the place she should call home, she said.

Yet at Port­land City Hall, two months ago, there again was Raiford, help­ing lead the charge of pro­tes­tors demand­ing to have a voice in delib­er­a­tions between the city and the police union.

For her TED talk, Raiford will speak about the heart of protest — the impor­tance of get­ting involved and mak­ing a dif­fer­ence. And she will share why she does it.

Specif­i­cal­ly, it was one day in Sep­tem­ber 2010 that changed the life of this for­mer accoun­tant, the day she learned of the shoot­ing death of her nephew, Andre Pay­ton. It was a loss that forced her to come to grips with the plague of gun vio­lence, a com­mu­ni­ty issue that seemed to get no trac­tion among city lead­ers who would seem on the sur­face to be recep­tive to such a pro­gres­sive cause. Port­land is sym­pa­thet­ic, but is also main­ly white, she said.

“Port­land is a fake pro­gres­sive town,” she said.

See­ing the inac­tion forced Raiford to rec­og­nize that more need­ed to be done to make minor­i­ty voic­es heard, and more would be asked of her than just fundrais­ing and march­ing, she said.

“The only way that I could empow­er my com­mu­ni­ty was by protest­ing,” she said.

Get­ting the courage to lead the com­mu­ni­ty in protests didn’t come too hard, though. The old­est of 11 sib­lings, Raiford had had to take charge of her life and fight through her sit­u­a­tion from an ear­ly age, as both her par­ents end­ed up serv­ing time in prison.

“It was always on me to take care of sib­lings and cousins, and even my moth­er,” she said. It’s what dri­ves her to each protest, each ral­ly, each plan­ning ses­sion.

“It hurts to go out there. It hurts. All this stuff is bad. Mass incar­cer­a­tion, fos­ter care audits. The pain of my expe­ri­ence, and the val­ue of my age, and know­ing that I can fight for that child. I have to have courage.”

And in the end, it’s what gives Raiford her iden­ti­ty, no mat­ter how tired, or scared she might be.

“[The com­mu­ni­ty will] come get you,” she said. “They won’t let you not serve them.”

“I am the peo­ple that I serve,” she said. “Doing some­thing is rev­o­lu­tion­ary. And it’s nec­es­sary.”

“We might not always know exact­ly what we have to do, but if we don’t do any­thing, then that means that we don’t mat­ter. And that’s telling the world that it’s okay that we don’t mat­ter.”

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.

Karen Holman: Punk rock chemist to speak on new anti-cancer drug

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kh_firechemistry3

Karen Hol­man is a punk rock­er, radio DJ, and a chem­istry pro­fes­sor and researcher. She lives deeply in all three of those iden­ti­ties.

But at TEDxSalem, Hol­man’s sci­en­tist side will be on dis­play.

Hol­man was always inter­est­ed in sci­ence as a lit­tle girl, she said, and it was her non-end­ing ques­tion of “why?” that land­ed her in chem­istry.

“I want­ed to know what was hap­pen­ing to the mol­e­cules,” she said.

Hol­man, whose spe­cial­ty is in met­als, will share about the dis­cov­ery of met­al-based anti-can­cer drugs. She hopes to make the sci­ence behind this dis­cov­ery approach­able for audi­ences of all back­grounds, to learn about the bar­ri­ers med­ical sci­ence face in becom­ing acces­si­ble to patients, and become ener­gized about sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery and inno­va­tion.

kh_chemlecture1Hol­man’s sci­ence career began at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty, as an under­grad, and she also end­ed up at Willamette to estab­lish her teach­ing career.

 

It was through that jour­ney that she became a col­lege radio DJ and became inter­est­ed in alter­na­tive, met­al and punk rock music. While in Cal­i­for­nia for grad­u­ate school in the ’90s, Hol­man saw an all-girl punk band, which inspired her to play in bands of her own. You may rec­og­nize her as the gui­tarist for the City of Pieces, for exam­ple. But after all these years, she is just now in her first all-woman punk band called Hot Sheets.

Hol­man’s expe­ri­ence as a radio DJ also inspired her to even­tu­al­ly found KMUZ, Salem’s com­mu­ni­ty radio. She hosts two shows on it, and will soon start a third lat­er this month.

Announcement: Welcome, speakers of TEDxSalem 2017!

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One of the hard­est jobs the TEDxSalem team has is select­ing speak­ers, espe­cial­ly when, like this year, we receive almost 50 well-thought appli­ca­tions on inspir­ing, con­tro­ver­sial and infor­ma­tive top­ics.

It was not an easy task to nar­row down the selec­tion, but after much delib­er­a­tion, we are proud to intro­duce the class of TEDxSalem 2017.

Alia Bra­ley | Direc­tor of Pro­grams at the Albert Ein­stein Insti­tu­tion
Gina Ochsner | Award win­ning author and writer in res­i­dence at Cor­ban Uni­ver­si­ty
Jer­ry Braza | For­mer pro­fes­sor, Bud­dhist teacher, author and con­sul­tant
Karen Hol­man | Chem­istry Pro­fes­sor at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty and punk rock­er
Kathryn Cel­leri­ni Moore | Artist In Res­i­dence
Megha Joshi | Stu­dent and inven­tor
Nick Sym­monds | Olympic Ath­lete, Out­door Enthu­si­ast, Writer and Entre­pre­neur.
Rebec­ca Mait­land-Court­ney | Cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty thinker and activist
Renee Mitchell | Mul­ti­me­dia artist, teacher/facilitator, com­mu­ni­ty advo­cate and cre­ative rev­o­lu­tion­ist
Ter­es­sa Raiford | Con­tem­po­rary Civ­il Rights leader and com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er
Vanes­sa Tim­mons | Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Ore­gon Coali­tion Against Domes­tic & Sex­u­al Vio­lence
War­ren Bin­ford | Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Law at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty, Direc­tor of the Clin­i­cal Law Pro­gram
Yese­nia Gal­lar­do | Co-own­er of Poda Foods

As the months lead­ing up to TEDxSalem 2017 unfold, you will be hear­ing more about them and their top­ics, so stay tuned.

Hi there, it’s been a while…

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Photo by Johan Doornenbal
Pho­to by Johan Door­nen­bal

It’s been qui­et on the TEDxSalem home­front — at least pub­licly. After the event, we took some time off to catch up and regen­er­ate (well, Bri­an spent his time edit­ing the videos first —THANKS BRIAN!). We did the final event wrap-up, sub­mit­ted our infor­ma­tion to the TED moth­er­ship and reap­plied for our TEDxSalem license.…and got it! That’s right, we are offi­cial­ly renewed, and have also select­ed a date for our next event…

(wait for it)

(wait for it)

(wait for it)

The next TEDxSalem will take place on Sat­ur­day, Jan. 7, 2017, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

(Yippee!)

And the theme? Inquir­ing minds want to know, right?!

In the spir­it of the new year, our theme is “Rev­o­lu­tions.”

I know, I know, you are think­ing… “What? That’s a year away!” But real­ly, it won’t seem like that long once the date is here, and this gives the TEDxSalem team a lit­tle extra time for plan­ning, which has already begun, of course. We are work­ing on our year­ly sched­ule and will be open­ing our call to speak­ers and call to artists (for our Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram) soon. If you want to be noti­fied of when those open, join the TEDxSalem Request for Speak­er Appli­ca­tion list by adding your email here:

So save the date and watch this space, we will have some more news to share with you soon…so keep an eye on this space.

Meet Patrick Moreau, an Emmy-winning filmmaker

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Patrick More­au is a film­mak­er, a sto­ry­teller, an inno­va­tor and an Emmy-win­ner (five times over).

He had no inter­est in film, had nev­er even picked up a cam­era, but two years into a psy­chol­o­gy degree, some­thing changed.

“While in uni­ver­si­ty, I was learn­ing about all these cool, tough issues. I was real­ly inter­est­ed in explor­ing why and how…different ways of liv­ing, how peo­ple approach the world,” Patrick said. “That led me to film­mak­ing. I fell in love with the idea of telling a sto­ry and its impact on peo­ple.”

Out of the blue, Patrick got a call from a poten­tial client. They were look­ing for some­one who could tell a sto­ry dif­fer­ent­ly, with emo­tion.

“At the time, we were shoot­ing 30 to 40 wed­dings a year. One of our wed­dings went viral,” Patrick said.

That viral video helped Patrick’s com­pa­ny, Still­mo­tion, land the gig to cre­ate “A Game of Hon­or,” a TV and web series for NFL.com. It doc­u­ment­ed the NFL sea­son through episod­ic sto­ries.

His back­ground in psy­chol­o­gy com­pli­ments his sto­ry­telling abil­i­ty pro­vid­ing a deep­er under­stand­ing of char­ac­ter and the abil­i­ty to cap­ture that under­stand­ing on film.

“A Game of Hon­or” won three Emmys includ­ing Out­stand­ing Sports Doc­u­men­tary, Out­stand­ing New Approach to Sports Pro­gram­ming and Out­stand­ing Sports Pro­mo­tion­al Announce­ment.

Filmmaker Patrick Moreau

But that series was only the start, a jump­ing off point for Patrick and Still­mo­tion. Patrick was a fea­tured speak­er for the Social Inno­va­tion Sum­mit at the Unit­ed Nations. His team has gone on to chase cadets through the forests of Vir­ginia and explore child slav­ery through the eyes of a 9‑year-old girl sell­ing lemon­ade. His pas­sion for film­mak­ing has led him to ded­i­cate sev­en years devel­op­ing and teach­ing edu­ca­tion­al sto­ry­telling work­shops.

As he aims to make the unthink­able, approach­able, he speaks to the heart with his visu­al sto­ry­telling.

Come hear Patrick’s sto­ry on the TEDxSalem stage on Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 3. Get your tick­ets here.

Meet TEDxSalem’s Artist in Residence: Brianna Miller

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As part of our activ­i­ties this year, TEDxSalem has launched an Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram. The Artist in Res­i­dence (AIR) will help set the tone for our event, com­mu­ni­cate the event theme and con­vey an ‘idea worth spread­ing.’

As you can imag­ine, it’s a mighty large under­tak­ing both the selec­tion of an artist to take charge of the role and for an artist to cre­ate a work of art that will impact a space, express a feel­ing and con­vey a mes­sage while being suit­able for pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy.

It’s a tall order, but also a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty.

We received a num­ber of won­der­ful appli­ca­tions, but there was one that stood out among the rest, one that made an unfor­get­table impact. It stirred a response both men­tal and emo­tion­al. It showed inno­va­tion and intu­ition.

Meet Bri­an­na Miller, our inau­gur­al Artist In Res­i­dence for TEDxSalem.

A Salem-born Keiz­er res­i­dent, Bri­an­na was drawn to art in her youth, doo­dling, craft­ing and cre­at­ing. While attend­ing McNary High School, her ulti­mate goal was to land a job with Wieden+Kennedy, a Port­land adver­tis­ing agency best known for its work for Nike and Trav­el Ore­gon.

She is a recent grad­u­ate of the Pacif­ic North­west Col­lege of Art, where while study­ing design and dab­bling in illus­tra­tion, an inter­est in instal­la­tion art grew. Dur­ing the cre­ation of her the­sis, she devel­oped a fas­ci­na­tion with col­or the­o­ry, expe­ri­en­tial design and synes­the­sia.

Her final project was an inter­ac­tive instal­la­tion called “The Mag­i­cal Chro­ma­chines.” It con­sist­ed of three mov­ing light sculp­tures, her take on “The Dream Machine” by Brion Gysin and William Bur­roughs, which were each accom­pa­nied by a mixed tape of hand-select­ed songs that rep­re­sent­ed or inspired mem­o­ries from her past. It was an explo­ration of the inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty of col­or, music and mem­o­ry that could be expe­ri­enced col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly or with indi­vid­ual inter­ac­tion.

At the urg­ing of a friend, Bri­an­na applied to be the TEDxSalem AIR. Although a long­time fan of TED, since she only moved back to Salem in Novem­ber 2014, she was not famil­iar with our local event but when she read our post about the devel­op­ment of this year’s theme, co-cura­tor Bri­an Hart’s words stuck with her.

“Fear­less as a theme res­onates with me,” Bri­an­na said. “I like to explore top­ics of phi­los­o­phy. Why do we have fear? What is fear? Is it pos­si­ble to be com­plete­ly fear­less? How do you become fear­less?”

For the TEDxSalem stage she is lean­ing towards a light instal­la­tion, but has a num­ber of ideas in mind. Essen­tial­ly, she wants to cre­ate an immer­sive, sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence with her instal­la­tion.

The AIR pro­gram is a unique oppor­tu­nity for an artist. Bri­an­na is explor­ing her work, ideas and cre­ativ­i­ty to fash­ion a stage dis­play that will intrigue and inspire. She will also present a TEDx talk about her art.

After the event, TEDxSalem hopes to secure a pub­lic loca­tion to dis­play her instal­la­tion so the whole com­mu­ni­ty may enjoy and expe­ri­ence it as well.