Monthly Archives: March 2011

2011 TED Prize winner: JR

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Couple of days ago, I went to see TED 2011‘s simulcast at Belfry theatre. As you might know, TED 2011, the annual conference for “Ideas Worth Spreading” was happening in Palm Springs, CA. I attended the last session of the day 2 of the 4-day event, named “Radical Collaboration”.

There were 4 presenters, including one “surprise” guest which turned out to be Jamie Oliver. I know all these are old news, all the talks are on TED.com website for you to check out if you like.
But I wanted to talk about one of the speakers, TED Prize winner, JR, street artist.

When they announced the winner of this year’s TED prize, I had no idea who he was. When this skinny French guy came out and started talk about his experience, I still wasn’t convinced what was so special about him. But by the end of his talk, I was absolutely FASCINATED!

He creates huge black and white portraits of people and paste them all over the world.

“In 2007, with business partner Marco, he did “Face 2 Face,” which some consider the biggest illegal photo exhibition ever. JR and a grassroots team of community members posted huge portraits of Israelis and Palestinians face to face in eight Palestinian and Israeli cities, and on both sides of the security fence/separation barrier.

He embarked on a long international trip in 2008 for his exhibition “Women Are Heroes,” a project underlining the dignity of women who are the target of conflict. In 2010, the film Women Are Heroes was presented at the Cannes Film Festival and received a long standing ovation.”(Excerpt from TEDprize.org website)

Check out this video to see how amazing his projects are;

TED Prize Winner JR & INSIDE OUT from TED Prize on Vimeo.

I particularly loved this words – “Women are heroes“. This fall, 3 amazing women and I are putting together a conference for women, called Breathe Now. We wanted the opportunity for all women (students, business women, moms) to get together and connect, learn and share their stories. The website is still new and there are LOTS to be worked on, but we are very very excited about this.

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As TED prize winner, JR was granted one wish. His wish :
“I wish for you to stand up for what you care about by participating in a global art project, and together we’ll turn the world…INSIDE OUT.”

Learn about his Inside Out project here.

I know it’s a long video, but you can see his complete talk here;

In the video, he talks about how something that seem so unnecessary as art is indeed so needed in areas of conflict and poverty. In those areas, people are hungry for culture. I particularly LOVED the episode from “Face 2 Face” project during Palestine and Israel conflict. (Around 7:00 in the video)
Another episode he shares is a comment by one of the bystanders -to a guy asking “What is the purpose of your art project?” He replied, “You’ve been watching this project for few hours, and while you were, you didn’t think about what you’re going to eat tomorrow. This is art.”

It’s not in the video above, but what happened after his talk was even more amazing. The MC, Chris Anderson asked if anyone in the audience could help out with his wish. Several people raised hands, and they each offered studio space in NY, network of photographers, invited him to come to their country to do the project etc…as you know, to attend the actual TED conference it costs you at least $6,000. So you can imagine the crowd….one lady was from Sundance Film Festival and she offered JR a grant to make his documentary film on the spot. Someone from Google Earth offered to work with him to have his art visible in Google Earth(!!!!) And the most amazing offer of all was this guy, who said ” Um, I own a dessert – I can help if you want a huge space”! Dessert?!?

It was such an inspirational afternoon. I was so glad I attended. Then again, it would have been absolutely amazing to actually being there at Palm Springs.

For those who love getting inspired – there are various TEDx(Independently organized TED event) events coming to Victoria this year.
TEDxUvic is March 12, and my Getting Engaged co-host Russel and I are volunteering for TEDxJuanDeFuca on April 30. Check us out.

Uncanny Timing

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Last couple of days have been tough for me. More than two friends have told me (separately) about their hardships in life, which made my heart sink. I had my own disappointments-very minor compared to my friends’, but still-that made me think about my relationships with people around me.

And yesterday. Yesterday I was in a local children’s bookstore when I saw a dad and his son. The boy was around my son’s age and he looked a lot like my friend’s son, who lives in Ottawa.
I glanced at the dad and realized indeed he is the friend from Ottawa.

He is my friend’s cousin. He was living in Japan for few years, and eventually married a Japanese girl(whom I will cal H).
My friend introduced us, and we exchanged emails for few months and met for the first time couple of years ago.
H is from a city that is very close to where I’m from, so we hit it off talking about our hometowns.

Last time I saw H was exactly an year ago, March 1st, 2010, here in Victoria.

That March day last year, H and the family were passing through Victoria on their way to Ottawa to permanently move there.
She and I took our kids to the park, and then we went for a coffee.

At that time, in my personal life, my ex-husband and I had just decided to separate, but hadn’t told many people about it.
I had also met somebody special and had just started dating him.

When I was having coffee with H, he happened to drop by at the coffee shop to say hello. I had not told H about what was happening in my marriage(after all, we had so much to talk about her new life in Canada), so I just introduced him as a friend.
At the time, H’s English wasn’t too good, so she kept asking me in Japanese questions like, “How do you know him?” “Is he your husband’s friend?”, which I had hard time answering truthfully.

Eventually it was time to say goodbye, and I wished her well and they left for Ottawa.

Few months later, I had found out H had become very ill. Liver cancer. They could not treat her in Ottawa so they had rented a place in Toronto so that she can get treatments.

Few weeks ago, I sent her a message. I told her what happened in my marriage, and the man she saw was somebody really dear to me, and that I am thinking about her a lot. She said she was happy to know that I am happy now, and that day I was acting funny and she wondered if anything was going on between he and I. We shared a good chuckle(virtually) over the incident.

After that, I found out she had moved to Japan to try different type of treatment that is only available in Japan. She went by herself, leaving her husband and her son behind for now.

Then, yesterday I saw the husband and son. Exactly year later. I didn’t even know they were in town. What are the chances?

When I started talking to him about H, I could not stop crying. He said this past year has been really tough for them. “What happened after we moved to Canada was, just so bad.”
But now they were on their way to Japan. We exchanged phone numbers so that we can get the kids together before they leave because he has no idea when they will be back in Canada….

Sometimes life brings extraordinary things. Many of us are going though poignant times in life right now, but these extraordinary moments give us a glimmer of hope there might be light at the end of the dark tunnel.