In the spirit of Ideas Worth Spreading TED has created a program called TEDx, a series of local self-organised events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. TEDxSydney at CarriageWorks on Saturday 22 May 2010 featured a selection of Australia's leading visionaries and storytellers showcasing their Ideas Worth Spreading LIVE to a group of thinkers ... as well as ONLINE to the world at large

What the world needs now...Global Hydrotherapy through Aquatic Art

Sarah Jane Pell

...I am in the business of creating New Medias underwater. I dive four times a week for up to 150 minutes to a depth of 12 meters for anywhere up to 19 bounces. This means I ascend and descend up to 19 times in any one dive. I work in zero visibility in an ocean harbour naturally stained by the tannins of tea tree and button grass local to the remote pristine World Heritage Wilderness Area. Without sight, I can completely focus on how and where my body moves underwater. Sometimes, I imagine myself like an astronaut falling amongst the stars but my breath constantly orients me as an ever-present reminder of my own fragile embodiment and the delicate balance of life that surrounds me here on Planet Earth. What the world needs now is to awaken an aquatic consciousness, to reconnect to natural rhythms and life cycles so that the planet itself can be treated to some vital hydrotherapy! With a professional background as a performance artist - I naturally live and breathe a liquid reality. While studying Visual & Performing Arts at university, I began professional diver training. I have since logged over 1000 hours underwater as an ADAS commercial diver. There are not many people who can say that they wet themselves at work everyday! Combine this body and environment consciousness with the principals of diving – and you have some very interesting creative possibilities and a unique perspective on the state of our oceans and waterways – and the current thinking towards them. I have a wish: to develop real and virtual studio technologies and choreographies for artists to lead advanced human exploration underwater as one part of an adaptive strategy for the future survival of our species. ...So much contemporary scientific research – most prominently climate and space science – ‘mitigates against’ or ‘counter measures’ aspects of the extreme environment. My work approaches the challenges as an evolutionary process. We should not forget that we are an adaptive species. The planet on which we live is always changing –the speed of change arguably accelerated by our recent intervention. Independence is simply an illusion. The paradox of interdependence is that we simultaneously constrain and empower each other. Collaboration –between art and science, people and the environment, individual and group requires good communication and imagination for there to be symbiosis: a coordinated performance of the primal artistry and balance between natural forces. Adaptation begins with understanding human behavioural changes, physiological and psychological responses and the effects on human expression. With its foundation in philosophical investigation, art is critical to that process. Please join me in a breath of solidarity: INHALE EXHALE And spread the word!

'Excerpt' from 'Global Hydrotherapy through Aquatic Art' by Dr. Sarah Jane Pell, TEDxSydney 2010 - All right reserved. Special thanks Ellis-Jones Media Advisors for Pell

TEDxSydney 2010 Photo Montage. Fiona Lumsdaine Photography Photo © TEDxSydney 2010