Innovation in Three Acts
Act I
Rachel Preston Prinz: New Mexico’s acequias—the future of water in the land of enchantment
Acequias have long been an important resource in New Mexico. In the modern world, the underutilization and misuse of acequias threatens our local agriculture systems and nature’s ability to provide for all of us the one thing we need most: water. What future do acequias hold for New Mexico? Can they, and thus we, get back on track to a truly sustainable future?
Rachel Preston Prinz is an architectural designer and historian in New Mexico. She finds the best of what is old and remakes it, and/or perceptions of it, by building architectural languages that transcend architectural styles. She is a member of the American Institute of Architects, The SEED Network, Architecture 2030, and The International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism.
Victoria Price: Tell me, what do you have in your house? Finding the tools for success in our own lives
How do we reinvent ourselves when resources seem limited or unavailable? During a time of economic crisis, Victoria Price remembered a story her mother told her—and discovered that the tools we need for recovery and reinvention can be found in our own lives.
Victoria Price is a designer, art historian, author, public speaker, and screenwriter. Her Santa Fe lifestyle store, Victoria Price Art & Design, is well-known for its unique blend of contemporary and ethnographic art with home furnishings. It also serves as the base for her interior design business, offering complete design services throughout the West.
Justina Trott: How an understanding of sex, gender, race, and class can save our lives and money
For years Justina Trott has wondered why 90% of drugs were withdrawn from the market because of side effects in women, and why spending more on health care in the U.S. has resulted in decreased health and a widening health gap. She offers several policies, informed by a process that acknowledges our differences in sex, gender, race and class that can improve health and save lives and money.
Justina Trott, M.D. is Co-Director of the Women’s Health Policy Unit, Senior Fellow at the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy, University of New Mexico, and President-elect American College of Women’s Health Physicians.
Mike Peters: The liberal arts in a digital age
Current economic conditions raise questions about the value of a liberal arts education. And now, new advances in educational technology offer ways to receive an education that are seen as more efficient than “traditional” methods. Mike Peters illustrates how these views substantially undervalue the benefits of a traditional liberal arts education, both for the individual and the society as a whole.
Mike Peters is President of St. John’s College. He was Executive Vice President of the Council on Foreign Relation following a 27-year career in the U.S. Army. A West Point graduate, he earned a B.S. degree from the U.S .Military Academy and a M.A. degree in Economics from the University of Washington.
Andrew Tulchin: Local investing for all
The financial meltdown demonstrated banks are not infallible sources of capital, and clearly new solutions are needed to access credit for building and sustaining healthy communities. Local investing is possible, if you have $1 or $1 million. Andrew Tulchin shares how this old concept—where everyone participates to make a difference– is new again, offering specific examples of how to make it happen in New Mexico.
Andrew Tulchin is Managing Partner of Social Enterprise Associates, recognized as a 2012 New Mexico Sustainable Business of the Year. He has consulted with over 100 start-up companies and non-profits enabling clients to raise more than $100 million, furthering sustainability and community well-being.
Emily Kaltenbach: Public enemy #1—Nixon’s failed drug war (and how to end it)
It has been over forty years since President Richard Nixon officially declared a “war on drugs.” A trillion dollars and millions of ruined lives later, the war on drugs remains a miserable failure. Emily Kaltenbach asks us to revise our strategies for combating drug misuse based on knowledge—developing a strategy designed to get us to a place where politics no longer trumps science, compassion, common sense, and fiscal prudence in addressing the misuse of drugs.
Emily Kaltenbach is the state director for Drug Policy Alliance’s New Mexico office. Prior to joining DPA, she served as the director of Policy and Planning at the New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department and served as the acting director for New Mexico’s Office of Health Care Reform.
Cecile Lipworth: One million women turning pain into power
In New Mexico, 260,000 daughters, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and nieces will be raped, abused, or murdered in their lifetime. The other three quarter million girls and women are at risk every day. The women of New Mexico must turn their pain into power, and demand an end to this violence. Cecile Lipworth shares the ideas and actions needed–on the part of activist-residents, the governor, state lawmakers, judges, law enforcement, state agencies, and community groups—to pass policies, fund programs and change consciousness to end violence against women and girls in New Mexico and globally.
Cecile Lipworth had worked for V-Day for over 10 years and is currently its Managing Director. V-Day is a global grassroots activist movement founded by Tony Award-winning playwright Eve Ensler with the goal of ending violence against women and girls. She calls on New Mexicans to join V-Day to end the state’s high rates of violence against women.
Act II
Amy Christian: How outdoor theater ignites social change
Live outdoor theater triggers change in our world by engaging audiences in a shared, authentic and active experience. Amy believes that accessibility is the key to sparking a dialogue of societal understanding and transformation. By bringing together diverse audiences and revealing our common human condition, people who experience live theater are moved to see our sameness, not our differences.
Amy Christian is a performer, teacher, and activist, who has been creating handmade visuals and outdoor spectacle productions for 24 years. Founder of Wise Fool New Mexico, Wise Food Puppet Intervention, and the In The-Street Theatre Festival, she is dedicated to accessibility in the arts as a means of creating the world we envision.
Dennis R. Holloway: Encountering architecture and urban design of the pre-contact Americas in virtual reality
State-of-the-art computer software and spatial data can create, in virtual 3D space, a growing model archive of architecture, towns and cities of the Americas as they would have appeared before arrival of the Europeans. Dennis Holloway’s computer models show how the U.S. looked when it was populated by indigenous cultures that were intimately connected to the land before the arrival of the Europeans. We “moderns” can learn much from these cultures, especially from their sustainable architecture to rediscover the truth of wedding architecture and environment.
Dennis R. Holloway is an architect and urban designer in the Four Corners Region, and is a pioneer of passive solar architecture (U/MN Project Ouroboros) and “culturally relevant” design (UC/Boulder Solar Hogan Demonstration). After a career in University teaching and research, he has returned to practice architecture and urban design, but now armed with computers and advanced software in his design quest.
David Perez: Seamlessly starting up in Santa Fe
Since moving to Santa Fe three years ago from New York City, David Perez has heard many times “how difficult” it is to start and build a high tech company in Santa Fe and New Mexico. He’s never believed this and in fact used this common point of view as a challenge and source of energy to prove otherwise. He and his team have started up a mobile medical tech company in Santa Fe called Seamless Medical Systems. The idea David Perez shares is how to create a breakthrough, creative, consumer tech business in Santa Fe, and how being based in Santa Fe has advantages over other start up hotbeds such as Manhattan or Silicon Valley.
David Perez describes himself as a passionate, creative, successful serial entrepreneur who wants to inspire other New Mexicans to start local businesses, raise capital, and invest in new ventures.
Justin Handley: Going global—destroying the planet one sale at a time
Justin Handley discusses the impact of the global economy on our ecosystem and why globalization isn’t going to see the century out. As planetary resources are consumed by an overpopulated earth, coming back home and learning about our local land bases is the central theme that will create a sustainable future.
Justin Handley is a musician, marketer, and passionate advocate of the local movement. As CEO of Narasopa Media and LocalSantaFe.com he helps connect customers with local businesses to reduce product miles. He lives on a farm where he grows and stores food for his family.
Lois Rudnick: The immigrant blame game
Lois Rudnick explores, through compelling stories and visuals, the 150 year history of blaming immigrants for systemic economic, political, social, medical, educational, and cultural problems. This has resulted in our nation’s inability to create sensible and sustainable immigration reform policies that would acknowledge the fact that, in the words of the usually saturnine Republican president, Calvin Coolidge: “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”
Lois Rudnick is Professor Emerita of American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she chaired the American Studies Department for 26 years and taught courses in American literature, history, and culture, including courses on U. S. multi-ethnic, literature, U. S. immigration, and on “American Identities.” She has earned awards for her teaching and has published and lectured widely throughout the U.S. and in Europe.
Lynn Walters: Cooking with kids—empowering children to make healthy food choices
Did you know that children naturally love to cook? Adults are often surprised to learn that kids enjoy preparing and eating a variety of foods; and research confirms that positive, hands-on food choice and cooking experiences increase children’s preferences for fruits and vegetables. Lynn Walters tells us how we can empower children to make healthy food choices.
Lynn Walters is founder and Executive Director of Cooking with Kids, Inc., a non-profit organization that engages elementary school children in experiential learning with fresh, affordable foods from diverse cultures. A former restaurateur, Lynn Walters brings her passion for cooking and gardening to her writing, research, and work with children.
Zane Fischer: The free drink
MIX is a structure for interaction and collaboration among inspired individuals, entrepreneurs, innovators, businesses, and organizations. Zane Fischer finds that the same data and game strategies used to predict and modify consumer and voter behavior can be used locally in smaller communities and clusters to affect important change. He tells the story of how MIX Santa Fe accomplished a coming-together of diverse interest groups in Santa Fe for the common good.
Zane Fischer is a founder and principle at Anagram, a Santa Fe design studio. He is a national award-winning columnist and was formerly Web Editor for the Santa Fe Reporter, where he wrote about economic development, planning and land use, public policy and sustainable development.
Act III
Larry Littlebird: Walking backwards into the future—an ancestral indigenous cosmology
Indigenous peoples have lived intimately rooted in regenerative circles of life. Today’s industrialized societies disconnect us from natural systems critical for survival. Walking backwards into the future is about slowing down and listening. This spoken word legacy connects past, present, and future for living in concert with the land. Larry Littlebird shares that for most Native people, the action has always been “to simplify your life so your spirit can teach you how to live”.
Larry Littlebird (Laguna/Santo Domingo Pueblos) is founding director of HAMAATSA, a learning center that celebrates an indigenous holistic way of life. A master storyteller, Native filmmaker, and author of Hunting Sacred, Everything Listens, Littlebird shares spiritual roots of sustainability and ways of blessing for inspiring transformative leadership and social action.
Paul Navrot: Nurturing agricultural diversity through backyard seed saving
In Paul Navrot’s vision, home gardens are ideal spaces for fostering diversity in cultivated plant strains through seed saving and sharing. Here, heirloom strains are not subject to the pressures of commercialized systems, and can beneficially serve the regional ecosystem and garden community. Paul Navrot wants to teach every gardener how to save, share, and plant food-crop garden seeds.
Paul Navrot serves on the advisory board for Home Grown New Mexico and helps organize community events around urban agriculture and seed sharing.
Maggie Macnab: Design by nature
Maggie Macnab explores the subtle relationships of everyday natural processes as the essential metaphors of human experience. Linking cultural iconography and pop/corporate symbolism back into their origins of the natural world, she examines the unending versatility of nature and how its ingenious ways of problem -solving creates beautiful and compelling street art, graphic design, and architecture.
Maggie Macnab is the author of Decoding Design and Design by Nature. She has owned Macnab Design since 1981 and teaches at Santa Fe University of Art and Design, Institute of American Indian Arts, University of New Mexico, and Santa Fe Community College. Maggie is committed to beautiful and functional design and creative problem solving that is based in nature’s richly practical process.
Melissa Salazar: Going loca for local: returning Española’s food to Españolans
Living in a rural area like the Española Valley, surrounded by farmers and ranchers, doesn’t necessarily mean you can find local products for sale at the local grocery store. Melissa Salazar describes how the Española Community Market, a food cooperative, and their partners are working to transform the food “desert” classification of the upper Rio Grande Valley by providing access to local products to the local community.
Melissa Salazar, Ph.D., has been studying and writing about food access and multicultural food issues for the past 15 years. She was deeply involved in the start up of the Española Community Market’s cooperative store, and lives in Española, New Mexico.
Jerry Wellman: Two axles 4 wheels and a truck full of art
Axle Contemporary is a mobile art gallery in a retrofitted step van, an innovative vehicle for arts distribution. The aim of Axle is to bring diverse artwork to diverse audiences. When Axle parks and opens its doors, you can’t help but step in and actively participate in a dialogue about the art that is on display. Axel is expanding the definitions of art and its dissemination in an effort to reveal our community to itself.
Jerry Wellman’s work as a carny, Indian Trader, minister, private investigator, teacher, ceramic tile designer, author, artist, videographer and curator coalesced as co-founder of Axle Contemporary. Exploring and sharing an expanded view of art is central to his production as an artist.
Dubra Karnes-Padilla: Designing the Santa Fe-Belen Rail Runner Artists’ Corridor
The Santa Fe-Belen Railrunner Artists’ Corridor connects the communities of Santa Fe and Belen —a small town of 7,500 that is struggling to revitalize itself. This creative corridor could promote walking and biking guides to local artists and studios at every train stop. With the development of mobile apps, Websites, and local guided tours, these communities can work collaboratively to promote the arts and economic development in Belen. Dubra Karnes-Padilla invites Santa Fe’s established and successful galleries and artists to support the new artist colonies slowing growing “down south” and at the end of the line in Belen.
Dubra Karnes-Padilla is an educator and artist who, as a community activist, supports projects that focus on wellness, resiliency, and the arts. She has been, until retiring in 2012, a full-time instructor and manager of the Fitness and Wellness Education Center at the University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus since 2000. Dubra Karnes-Padilla is President of the Board of the Resiliency Corps and founder of “Believing in Belen,” a project that seeks to support the artist community in Belen and create a sister city relationship with Santa Fe.
Nancy Judd: Undressing the crime scene—addressing how to slow climate change
Nancy Judd creates couture fashion sculptures from trash to raise awareness about pressing environmental concerns. How can a dress be an agent of change? Nancy Judd will undress Crime Scene—her most provocative garment to-date, to reveal the personal and planetary violence it embodies. She will also issue a call to action, reflecting current thinking on addressing global warming.
Nancy Judd is an internationally recognized artist and environmental educator collected by the Smithsonian. She uses her elegant trashique fashions to inspire people to take environmental action. Using engaging public exhibitions, workshops and speeches, Nancy Judd reaches millions of people across the globe with her creative message.
ACT NOW
Immediately following the TEDxAcequiaMadre presentations, participants are invited to meet with the speakers, organizers and sponsors to continue the community dialogue about ideas and action worth supporting and nurturing.
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