TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

TEDxSalem

Mind-altering reads from TEDxSalem

By

Fol­low TEDxSalem down the rab­bit hole with one of these six mind-alter­ing books rec­om­mend­ed by our speak­ers, sto­ry­tellers and cura­tors.

We hope they get you excit­ed for TEDxSalem V “Through the Look­ing Glass.”

1. The Center Can­not Hold: My Jour­ney Through Mad­ness by Elyn R. Saks

Saks shares her jour­ney from a ‘nor­mal’ kid, to her diag­noses, to get­ting treat­ment, com­ing off med­ica­tion and relaps­ing and then becom­ing an esteemed pro­fes­sor, lawyer and psy­chi­a­trist.

“I read this book a few years ago, and it com­plete­ly blew me away. See­ing life through the eyes of some­one with schiz­o­phre­nia was intense, amaz­ing and heart­break­ing.”

Recommended by Bri­an Hart, TEDxSalem co-cura­tor and half of the dynam­ic duo that brought TEDx to Salem

 

2.Essentialism: The Dis­ci­plined Pur­suit of Less by Greg McK­e­own

“I’ve read the book Essen­tial­ism more times than any oth­er book on my shelf. When I find myself drown­ing in busy work and los­ing sight of my pri­or­i­ties, I dive into the book again to remind myself to focus on the work I was born to do.

It helps me decide what goes and what stays in my sched­ule, my busi­ness and my per­son­al life. (The audio­book is great, too!)”

Rec­om­mend­ed by Marie Greene, TEDxSalem speak­er, knitwear design­er, writer, knit­ting instruc­tor and inter­na­tion­al speak­er

 

3. “Dar­ing to Dri­ve: A Sau­di Woman’s Awak­en­ing” by Man­al Al-Sharif

“The secret police came for me at two in the morn­ing” Man­al Al-Sharif writes in her true account of liv­ing in Sau­di Ara­bia. Her crime? Dri­ving.

It’s easy to take cer­tain free­doms for grant­ed, but Al-Sharif trans­ports you to her world where women can­not even seek med­ical treat­ment with­out their male guardian, which in some cas­es proves fatal. Al-Sharif’s book is often a tough read but an impor­tant one.

Rec­om­mend­ed by Ste­fanie Knowl­ton, TEDxSalem sto­ry­teller, award-win­ning jour­nal­ist and bel­ly­dancer

 

4. What Should I Do With My Life?: The True Sto­ry of Peo­ple Who Answered the Ulti­mate Ques­tion by Po Bron­son

Po cap­tures the jour­neys of 56 indi­vid­u­als as they strug­gle to define their iden­ti­ty and val­ues to live inten­tion­al­ly.

“This pow­er­ful book helped me clar­i­fy my own val­ues and ques­tion my inter­ests, pas­sions and goals as I read through the inter­nal dia­logues of oth­ers. I encour­age col­lege-age read­ers, those inter­est­ed in refin­ing their path and seek­ers to read this love­ly col­lec­tion of short sto­ries.”

Rec­om­mend­ed by Rose Bark­er, a Cer­ti­fied Risk Man­age­ment Con­sul­tant and expert on iden­ti­ty theft

 

5. Get Momen­tum: How to start when you’re stuck by Jason W. Wom­ack & Jodi Wom­ack

 “I have found myself in a funk a few too many times… this book has helped me focus and make changes through tan­gi­ble advice and activ­i­ties to help rein­force new habits.”

Rec­om­mend­ed by Car­lee Wright, TEDxSalem co-cura­tor and half of the dynam­ic duo that brought TEDx to Salem

 

6. The Psy­che­del­ic Explor­er’s Guide: Safe, Ther­a­peu­tic, and Sacred Jour­neys by James Fadi­man

Fadi­man out­lines best prac­tices in psy­che­del­ic use for safe, sacred voy­ages learned through his more than 40 years of expe­ri­ence.

“This book changed my belief sys­tem and was one of the main cat­a­lysts for me to con­tin­ue my spir­i­tu­al jour­ney to find my true self. It chal­lenged many things I believed and has changed me for the bet­ter.”

Rec­om­mend­ed by Bri­an Hart, TEDxSalem co-cura­tor and half of the dynam­ic duo that brought TEDx to Salem

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.

What is TEDx

About TEDx, x = inde­pen­dent­ly orga­nized event

In the spir­it of ideas worth spread­ing, TEDx is a pro­gram of local, self-orga­nized events that bring peo­ple togeth­er to share a TED-like expe­ri­ence. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speak­ers com­bine to spark deep dis­cus­sion and con­nec­tion in a small group. These local, self-orga­nized events are brand­ed TEDx, where x = inde­pen­dent­ly orga­nized TED event. The TED Con­fer­ence pro­vides gen­er­al guid­ance for the TEDx pro­gram, but indi­vid­ual TEDx events are self-orga­nized. (Sub­ject to cer­tain rules and reg­u­la­tions.) 

Artist-in-Residence program seeks applicants

By

TEDxSalem seeks appli­ca­tions for its Artist-in-Res­i­dence pro­gram. The select­ed artist will design and cre­ate a stage instal­la­tion for TEDxSalem V, which takes place Jan. 6, 2018. In addi­tion to cre­at­ing an instal­la­tion, the artist gives a TEDx talk (5–8 min­utes) that reflects their work and the event theme “Through the Look­ing Glass.”

“It is a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for an artist to share their work with a new audi­ence and in a new, dynam­ic way,” co-cura­tor Car­lee Wright said. “This pro­gram encour­ages the Artist-in-Res­i­dence to explore their prac­tice and cre­ativ­i­ty as it relates to and con­nects with the TEDxSalem theme.”

TEDxSalem pro­vides the Artist in Res­i­dence with sup­port, assis­tance and a $1000 stipend to cre­ate their instal­la­tion piece.

The TEDxSalem AIR pro­gram will con­tin­ue to col­lab­o­rate with Salem Art Asso­ci­a­tion as part of SAA’s Com­mu­ni­ty Arts Edu­ca­tion (CAE) Artist-in-Res­i­dence (AIR) Pro­gram in the ren­o­vat­ed Art Annex in Bush Park. The select­ed artist will uti­lize the stu­dio space for par­tial cre­ation of the instal­la­tion, and will have access to the larg­er main space as the instal­la­tion grows in size. SAA’s CAE AIR Pro­gram con­nects with our com­mu­ni­ty through var­i­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties such as artist talks, work­shops, and oth­er pro­gram­ming, which the TEDxSalem artist can par­tic­i­pate in as part of SAA’s CAE Pro­gram.

Dead­line to apply is June 14, 2017.

For addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion, includ­ing how to apply, please vis­it TEDxSalem.us/artist-in-residence. Sub­mit email inquiries to: artist@tedxsalem.us.

Meet Artist-in-Residence Kathryn Cellerini Moore

By

Ore­gon-native and self-pro­fessed nerd Kathryn Cel­leri­ni Moore is a cre­ative force trans­form­ing child­hood mem­o­ries into thought-pro­vok­ing art instal­la­tions. And this year she is the TEDxSalem Artist in Res­i­dence help­ing set the tone for our event, com­mu­ni­cate its theme and con­vey an ‘idea worth spread­ing.’

Drawn to art for its ther­a­peu­tic val­ues, Kathryn holds a BS in Psy­chol­o­gy and a BFA in Allied Visu­al Arts from Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty. She earned her Mas­ter’s Degree in Stu­dio Art with a focus on print­mak­ing, sculp­ture and instal­la­tion from Stony Brook Uni­ver­si­ty in New York. Although across the coun­try, Kathryn want­ed a pro­gram that would allow her to explore.

“Stu­dio art was open enough for those like me who can’t decide on one medi­um,” she said. “I wasn’t good about mak­ing deci­sions, about focus­ing. I want­ed to do what felt should be done for what­ev­er the idea was.”

“I nev­er felt like I was going to mas­ter any one mate­r­i­al because I nev­er stick with one for very long,” Kathryn said. “What you are mas­ter­ing is how to take an idea and give it form. So I would say, I am most­ly drawn to con­cep­tu­al ideas where the idea forms every­thing else.”

“I am also very drawn to mate­ri­als,” Kathryn added. “The sump­tu­ous­ness, tex­tures and col­ors.”


Inspi­ra­tion for the artist derives from her child­hood and the envi­ron­ment in which she grew up.

“My art is very seat­ed in how I respond to my every day and con­nect­ing to that…asking the ques­tion ‘Why do I respond that way?’” Kathryn said, not­ing that how for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence con­tin­ues to impact our dai­ly lives has been a thread through her work for some time.

For her TEDxSalem stage instal­la­tion, Kathryn hopes view­ers will see some­thing unex­pect­ed. It’s a vision that’s chaot­ic and con­trolled at the same time, she said. But there is also a very per­son­al lev­el, a fam­i­ly por­trait, to the instal­la­tion.

“For me, this instal­la­tion pays homage to the sweat and tears that goes into a rev­o­lu­tion,” Kathryn said, “I am look­ing at rev­o­lu­tion on a broad­er scale….as being a per­son­al a‑ha moment, a break­through in per­cep­tion that changes your life for­ev­er. I cre­ate art­work from direct per­son­al expe­ri­ence with the intent and belief that the per­son­al is uni­ver­sal.”

“Rev­o­lu­tion is also from begin­ning to end…one full cycle…a destruc­tive force,” Kathryn said. “Rev­o­lu­tions can be the basis for com­mu­ni­ty and growth.”

In coop­er­a­tion with the Salem Art Asso­ci­a­tion through a new pro­gram cater­ing to the Artist-in-Res­i­dence con­cept, Kathryn will be work­ing on her TEDxSalem stage instal­la­tion on-and-off at The Annex through Jan. 6. The Bush Barn Art Cen­ter and the Annex are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tues. to Fri. and noon to 5 p.m. Sat. and Sun., at 600 Mis­sion St. SE in Salem. The build­ings will be closed from Dec.  25-Jan. 3.Learn more at salemart.org/programs/annex.

Teressa Raiford: #blacklivesmatter was just the beginning

By

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

By

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.

How TEDxSalem ended up with a majority woman speaker roster

By


The most impor­tant task for the orga­niz­ers of TEDxSalem is curat­ing inter­est­ing, chal­leng­ing and fun talks — the essence of a good TEDx con­fer­ence. And tru­ly awe­some talks are insep­a­ra­ble from the speak­ers’ iden­ti­ty.

Rep­re­sent­ing diverse abil­i­ties, cul­tur­al back­grounds and gen­der iden­ti­fi­ca­tion is key to putting on a well-round­ed event. Some of these goals came eas­i­er and more nat­u­ral­ly than oth­ers.

“Since we start­ed TEDxSalem, we have always strived for more diver­si­ty in our speak­er line-up. We want TEDxSalem to rep­re­sent a spec­trum of races, thoughts and ideas and we dreamed that one day we might have an event that was half male and half female,” co-cura­tor Bri­an Hart said. “Some years find­ing women proved very dif­fi­cult, not many were apply­ing and our efforts to reach out to some of the amaz­ing women in our area were not pan­ning out. Rather than get­ting frus­trat­ed, it was a chal­lenge that we took on with Mox­ie, we knew we could do bet­ter.”

This year, the seeds we have been plant­i­ng over the past three years, reach­ing out to women that we admire and want to show­case, seem to final­ly be sprout­ing. Out of 13 speak­ers, 11 of them are women.

“What was once a dream of hav­ing a 50/50 ratio has been sur­passed by a woman dom­i­nat­ed line-up,” Hart said. “We could­n’t be more thrilled.”

How did this hap­pen?

Well first, we built rela­tion­ships with poten­tial women speak­ers that did not pan out in pre­vi­ous years, but sev­er­al of whom agreed to speak this year. Sec­ond, we hap­pened to pick most­ly women in our blind (as in no names or bio­graph­i­cal data) selec­tion process from our appli­cant pool. Com­bine the two process­es togeth­er, and we end­ed up with 11 women.

And trust us, these women are doing some amaz­ing work out in the world and they very much need to be heard — not for their sake, but for ours.

Achiev­ing the per­fect bal­ance may not be pos­si­ble, but tak­ing spe­cial care to rep­re­sent the tra­di­tion­al­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed is a goal that is worth the effort. Feel free to keep us account­able, but real­ly, help us expand and deep­en our reach into diverse com­mu­ni­ties.

Do you know of a per­son of an under­rep­re­sent­ed group who would be a great future TEDxSalem speak­er? Please reach out to us at info@tedxsalem.us. Because the rela­tion­ship we build today may lead to a new rev­o­lu­tion.

TEDxSalem-IV-women

 

 

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for stu­dents. 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.