Print ArticleTEDxJacksonville has picked an incredible group of people to speak at the TEDxJacksonville event.
AMAN MOJADIDI
Swimmin' with Existential Gators . . .
The Afghan artist and TED Fellow (TED Global 2012) Aman Mojadidi’s practice is based on his personal experiences and his curatorial and academic research in cultural studies. Having grown up as an American citizen, in a world that is simultaneously globalized and fractured, in his work Mojadidi combines traditional storylines and postmodern narrative strategies to approach themes such as belonging, identity politics, conflict, the push to and resistance against modernization. Continuously exploring what he calls the “geography of self,” Mojadidi travels through both mental and physical landscapes, intentionally blurring and merging the lines between them, as well as between fact and fiction, documentation and imagination.
He has exhibited his work in galleries, independent spaces, and cultural centers in New York City, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Cairo, Mumbai, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dubai, Kassel (dOCUMENTA 13), Dharamshala, Ft. Kochi (Kochi/Muziris Biennale), and Kabul.
Why did you apply to give a Talk at TEDxJacksonville?
I was born, and grew up, in Jacksonville and the opportunity to come and speak about the reasons i left and the reasons i may be coming back more often was too incredible to pass up.
What is your favorite TED Talk?
Very, very difficult, but i'll go with Sebastiao Salgado - The silent drama of photography
What does (un)knowing mean to you?
It means dissecting our own personal knowledge about history and the world and placing it under a microscope to try and identify the hegemonic meta-narratives that we've been taught never to question, and then question the hell out of them!
What do you wish the world (or the city of Jacksonville) could (un)know?
To "un-know" the various ways in which we are, or can be, judgmental about people and places.
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