Life with TED: Don't hold your tongue...Kyraocity didn't kill the cat.
Life Taghi, I haven't posted to our collaborative blog for quite a while. Life with TED, life as a TED Fellow continues to be extra-ordinary, enlivening, and like I found the tribe or family I had been searching for.
TED FELLOWS CONNECT
The sense of family with the larger TED community as well as with my TED Fellows Class of 2009 (Long Beach rocked), continues to grow. My fellow TED Fellows Juliette LaMontagne (teacher of teachers extraordinaire), Tino Chow (AMAZING designer and teacher of designers and biker maniac for Habitat for Humanity) and I had an amazing dinner at Fatty Crab, a Funky Southeast Asian joint located in the West Village on Monday October 12th. I discovered that Tino and I share a commitment to transforming what education can do and be about. When we met at TED Long Beach, I was sure he was a fellow professor rather than a grad student with a passion so strong I thought he was the teacher not still a student. I love when serendipity reminds you that anything is possible, all kinds of relationships hold the possibility of inspiring you. It is especially so in the TED community.
NOKIA CONNECTING TED FELLOWS TO THE WORLD
Well the Nokia documentary ads featuring Tino Chow, Katrin Verclas and I were released online as their new RESPONSIVENESS CAMPAIGN honoring the TED Fellows. Thanks for the ongoing support Nokia!! We were featured in Monocle magazine, which is amazing from cover to cover. Monocle features a Nokia promo of #TEDFellows on p.097 of the latest Oct 09 issue. AND they have fascinating video podcasts on iTunes. Check out Monocle podcast on "Thomas Demand, one of Germany's most iconic contemporary artists" and his new exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin". Demand photographs room-size 3-D sculptures made only of paper and then destroys his exhibits. No storage costs.
TWITTER LIVES http://twitter.com/kyraocity
TED Fellow Rom Feria in the Phillippines and I tweet back and forth a lot and my connection to his country is made more real by that. Thanks @Rom!! I have been tweeting a lot more after getting high off Crackbook, I mean Facebook for months now. I was a late adopter and totally got hooked on FB. If you want to follow me on Facebook, my profile is private so send me a comment or tweet me.
RACISM AS A RESOURCE
"I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strangely, I am ungrateful to these teachers" -- Kahlil Gibran
Don't hold your tongue. Curiosity didn't kill the cat. -- Kyra Gaunt aka Kyraocity
I've been tweeting and doing status updates on a numbered series I call Kyraoacity abt Racism that is part of my TED idea worth spreading called Racism as a Resource (Agree to Be Offended + Stay Connected). Been giving workshops, meetups, and 3 min talks about transforming the conversations of race/racism or really using being offended to get to the remarkable oneness of humanity swiftly and with much more ease. Could be about any -ism but I am starting where I live -- in conversations of difference regarding race and gender.
I gave most of my recent workshops and talks through alldaybuffet.org. Organizers Jerri Chou & MIchael Karnjanaprakorn put on the most AMAZING FEAST Conference on October 1. As FEAST host Cindy Gallop (whose TED Talk on older women, sex and porn will be released this week) said, it was one of the best conferences next to the gold standard of TED. It ran perfectly on time and every speaker was stellar. Watch the webcast of the Feast Conference.
VOICING MY DREAM - ON MORE SINGING
Since July singing has be resuscitated in my life. I collaborated with a friend from some research I was doing in Harlem on Africans and African Americans at a Harlem nightclub. Abdoulaye Alhassane Toure of Niger and I created some African versions of my R&B songs. And I won a competition with "I Dreamed a Dream" and my original "Black Can Be Me" and will be featured at the Extreme Open Mike at Birdland on October 25th. Hope you can come! See some of these performances of me on YouTube.
UPCOMING KYRAOCITY EVENTS
- I'll be singing at the upcoming TEDxEast Conference with my songwriting partner Tomas Doncker on Nov 6th at City Winery in NYC
- I'm speaking at the upcoming Exploring the State of Now #140 Characters Conference in London Nov 17 curated by Jeff Pulver (thx Jeff for putting me on).
- And I'll be singing and speaking at EuropeanSummit.org on Nov 20-22 in Rotterdam (can't wait). This will be my first trip to the Netherlands!
Also can't wait for TEDx Blue's WHAT IS POSSIBLE IN SCHOOL? this Sunday in NYC
Whew! That's a lot. Maybe I should blog with less more frequently LOL!
PS My old website got bought out. My new site address is kyraocityworks.com
xoxo, Kyra
Posted by Kyra Gaunt
