Is your identity given or created? | Marcus Lyon | TEDxExeter

Who are we? Marcus asks us to question how our identities are formed. Using Somos Brasil (We are Brazil), a multi media photography, sound and DNA project, he brings us images, stories and ancestral DNA to examine modern Brazilian identity. In turn he asks us to consider what drives us and what we can become.
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At TEDxExeter 2016 our speakers encapsulated the idea of movement, that grappling with humanity’s toughest questions requires first a vision, a dream, and then action.

Marcus Lyon is a British artist. He began his career with Amnesty International and The International Children’s Trust photographing street children in Latin America, Africa and Asia. He has an international reputation as a conceptual landscape and portraiture artist and has photographed notable public figures including the last four British Prime Ministers and Queen Elizabeth II. His most recent bodies of work on urban expansion, Brazilian national identity, mass migration and modern dance have been shown globally.

Marcus is also a committed social entrepreneur. He currently serves on the boards of Somerset House and Leader’s Quest, and is a founder ambassador for The Consortium for Street Children, Photovoice, BLESMA and Home Start.

[nickaoke]

I'll go with Jung: "I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become."

[smyrnasstory]

“When you have a strong sense of identity, you stand up for your beliefs instead of allowing your peers to control you”
Aw18#2

[ethanyang]

bruh came here for homework actually missed the point

[hdvision]

Have to do an assesment basing myself on this TED talk, very interesting topic.

[marcuslyon]

If we are a sum of the stories we have been told, then when we speak we are a multitude...

[carenasharp]

Through Interacting different people who possess distinct cultures and values shape you

[Permanentpriestess]

Possibly the only tedtalk I heard from start to finish

[WeideMarket]

SUCH A POWERFUL message! Saving this as one of my favourite TED-talks!

[bushido]

We can write fictions of ourselves because we are, after all, nothing - an empty palette.

[Rhygenix]

Everything that has affected you has affected your identity.

[ameenaimran]

Plz explain ur point... So then what is identity

[haochengloucosmopolitan]

"Camera is the tool to freeze the time"

[MattCalthrop]

Nice one Marcus! Very well done, great message.

[jimflask]

We have been discussing identity for 2000 years, my identity was stolen by the state where I was born and turned into a instrumentality of government, I am an "internally displaced" man, on the very land where I was born, in a stateless man because my nation state does not acknowledge any citizenship they only offer "residence" which is a temporary status, I can not use my given name from birth because that name and birthdate correspond to the registration of a government organization, as Jesus said "that is what you call me" I can't accept the assigned default status of less than human, if I am to identify myself or be forced to allow others to define me it will become a matter of life and death.

[glynnispitcher]

( REHAB TIME! ) PERSONAL IDENTITY DEPENDS ON CONSCIOUSNESS NOT ON SUBSTANCE. FACTS OVA FEELINGS!

[maudecoulombe]

Come to Québec, Canada, the french nation to see his originality, like the originality of Brazil.

[spiltbeans]

ted talks are the only videos that have so many views but so little comments lol

[liveinyourneighborhood]

So, many people come here for homework huh XD

[pythonanywhere]

What if people like Adolf "you know who" decided they wouldn't go into politics and instead they chose to focus on art?

Even though they'd be laughed at and nobody would take them seriously, they might help the world become a lot more peaceful.

And why do you think of people like me who have a very peculiar set of beliefs as antithetical to a faux reality (truthful but not convenient) are ridiculed when we focus on very artistic measures such as religion or expressive Christianity instead of real politics?

Do they not know the alternative for people like me?

It's not that I'd be automatically somebody like Adolf if I started legitimately getting involved in politics, but by my being involved I canker and rust the entire establishment because my voice is so strong and the truth is always inconvenient.

I'd rather be entirely distanced from politics and let the hippies take control, because my beliefs in Greco-Roman law and order would cause a lot of problems in a society that doesn't want either.

It's better to erase myself and my beliefs from the landscape, because untold terror would abound due to misunderstanding and human error even though my beliefs have truth.

I'd live like Mark Twain any day before I'd be in politics. Nobody can even remember the world leaders, problems, or political figures when Samuel Clemens existed off the top of their head, but we all know who Mark Twain is.

I find that fascinating.