Put 100 people together in a theatre for a day and provoke them with inspiring speakers, and it's likely that 100 creative new ideas will spring forth and be shared. That's the premise behind TEDxSechelt held at the Chatelech Theatre last Saturday.
Who is TED? The letters stand for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and they encompass a global range of speakers and grass roots think tanks that talk us into the future and help us see its possibilities. The Sechelt event's theme was creativity; it was organized locally by arts groups with sponsorship from local businesses. TED gave its name for the day on Oct. 1; the rest was up to a crew of volunteers who did a stellar job of weaving the many elements together.
"All the artists really put some thought into the theme of the event, and I think the passion came across," said organizer Steve Wright. "I invited artists I knew and admired and support. The content of the talks from local speakers were all a great treat, and Bjorn Enga's mountain bike film was more emotional than I was expecting."
One participant summed up the day's activities by writing on the TEDxSechelt Facebook page: "overwhelming, funny, critical, thought-provoking and more."
One presentation came from Gibsons' resident and filmmaker Matthew Talbot-Kelly who shared ideas about his three-dimensional animated collages, a fascinating study in an imaginative landscape.
An extreme ski film by Nicolas Teichrob and Kranked video excerpts from mountain biker Enga provided the visual set up for a talk on bike trails.
So what does mountain biking have to do with creativity? Speaker Jay Hoots, a professional, competition level rider who designs trails, told the audience that some of the most beautiful, creative trails he's seen are on the Sunshine Coast. Hoots showed how keen kids are to lift a shovel and build their own self-designed dirt parks for biking, and how often that land is taken away from them, deemed too valuable for recreation.
The concept of teenagers working for what they love fed into the next videoed TED speaker, Sugata Mitra, who talked about his hole-in-the-wall experiments in India. Computers were cemented into walls in rural Indian villages and kids who had never seen a computer before were told to learn how to operate them, without instruction. They learned rapidly.
"If children have interest, education happens," Mitra said.
Education and our future in children continued to pop up as themes throughout the day.
"Your ear is an active organ," said speaker Giorgio Magnanensi, who talked about the huge role that sound and music have in his life and the difference between the two. Naturally, there was live music at the event. Musicians Erica Mah and Darcy McCord stepped in at intervals to perform among Robert Studer designed artwork. This man likes large art and the unusual pieces, incised spheres, made up the stage set. Though it was not announced at the TEDx, Studer was one of 14 Vancouverites who has made significant contributions to the creative life of the city and will be the recipient of the 2011 Mayor's Arts Awards. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson will present the awards to artists from a wide variety of disciplines performing and visual arts to literary and culinary arts. Studer is honoured for his work in craft and design.
The day closed with a creative costuming from Sandy Buck and Chad Hershler of deer crossing, the art farm, who unveiled a dress made of five metres of fabric with beads, shells, foliage, paper and wood, using many of the items they had been given by TEDx participants.
As each person left the theatre, they were given a USB thumb drive, courtesy of Sunshine Coast Credit Union, as a souvenir record of the day's highlights.
Talk of next year's TEDx event is already underway.
