#7 This Caregiver's Watchlist. Art: 'Imagination, Connection and Hope'

TED Talk Recommendations

If you’re seeking inspiration and hope, you’ll enjoy these talks.

It’s inspiring to see how these three people are reimagining their purpose through art, or art through their purpose in life. What they do is imaginative, connects and inspires.

I hope you feel lighter after watching these.

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Hello, dear Readers. I’m Victoria (She/her/hers). I cared for my Dad through to his passing (the hellish dark days with grains of joy), and now I look after Mum (calmer waters, with moments of joy and several giggles). You can read more about why I’m publishing Carer Mentor here: Who Started Carer Mentor and Why?’

This is the seventh Caregiver’s Watchlist article. You can browse through the others in the ComfortZone here. I shared the premise for the Caregiver’s Watchlist series here.

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'Imagination, Connection and Hope'

One Artist’s Imagination Goes Wild

Shea Hembrey: How I became 100 artists (June 14 2011)

How do you stage an international art show with work from 100 different artists? If you're Shea Hembrey, you invent all the artists and artwork yourself -- from large-scale outdoor installations to tiny paintings drawn with a single-haired brush. Watch this funny, mind-bending talk to see the explosion of creativity and diversity of skills a single artist is capable of.

This is hilarious, brilliantly creative, and inspiring. I’m sure it’ll make you smile!

The power of imagination and the use of simple criteria: ‘if I can’t explain it to my Mema in five minutes…’

Here is Shea Hembrey’s website with Seek. The Inaugural Biennial

From his website:

seek consists of hundreds of individual works of art, and exists wholly as one singular work of art:
SEEK: 100 IN 2011—THE INAUGURAL EXHIBITION, the biennial catalogue for the inaugural exhibition.

Josh Rubin’s interview with Shea: ‘Shea Hembrey: 100 Artists. One artist invents one hundred to create a truly unique biennial’ in Cool Hunting (September 22, 2011)

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The Creative Process of Art Builds Connections and Change

JR Can Art Change the World (June 27, 2022)

Famed for enormous black-and-white portraits that are pasted on surfaces ranging from the Louvre to the US-Mexico border wall, multimedia artist JR continues to tackle ambitious projects. In this powerfully moving talk, he shares how he made a giant mural on the courtyard floor of a maximum-security prison -- with the help of guards and prisoners alike -- and ended up with much more than a compelling image. - JR

Some of the most potent insights he makes are said almost as throwaway remarks, in between the banter-bits.

The brilliance of the digitised stories in the mural, the shaking of hands—this is when the process, the acts of art demonstrate how we can create bridges of communication well beyond the image we see or the words we hear in this presentation.

You know, I want to use art as a bridge to make people talk to each other. I'm not an activist, I'm just an artist. I don't try to tell people what to think. I just try to make them think. And I really see art, to me, it's like, it's in the process. That's what's important. And after this whole project, after everything I showed you, what shook them, what struck them the most, is that I shook their hand. So at the end, they even asked me for a hug. Now I remember their first question, which was: What is the purpose of your art? Well, art can change things, but can it change the world? Or can it change a man? Before you answer that question, think, at some point in your life, have you changed? And if yes, if you did, why can't they? - JR

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Hopeful Optimism. Sharing Music and Vision for Change

The transformative power of classical music (February 2008)

Benjamin Zander A leading interpreter of Mahler and Beethoven, Benjamin Zander is known for his unyielding energy and charismatic pre-concert talks.

The title of this TED talk and opening is deceptive. Beyond the exuberance of the speaker there are profound messages. These are the gems I search for, the insights that speakers gift to us, through creative translations. Sometimes, it’s a piece of art, sometimes it’s music.

In this instance, Benjamin Zander interprets and translates music to help us follow the vision Chopin intended for his listeners.

He also makes us active participants in his experiment - not only to have a greater appreciation of classical music, but also to motivate us to inspire others—see the light appear in the eyes of others.

The conductor doesn't make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful. And that changed everything for me. It was totally life-changing. People in my orchestra said, "Ben, what happened?" That's what happened. I realized my job was to awaken possibility in other people. And of course, I wanted to know whether I was doing that. How do you find out? You look at their eyes. If their eyes are shining, you know you're doing it.

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I hope you feel lighter after watching these.

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