I am going to tell you today about my hero.
My hero is my mother.
She was a child of the 60´s in the Netherlands
which meant that before she got me,
and she was 25 when she had me,
she had squatted many buildings,
she had opened up the first meditation and yoga center in the Haag,
she had opened up her own restaurant of vegetarian organic food
that they were growing on their own farm
and that people were just waiting
outside in line to get in and to eat there.
Having a mother like this and living in a time where
because of her and her friends - what they did for my society
I was growing up in a perfect country.
We had spiritual freedom, I went to Waldorf school with my friends.
I can't remember that we had anything to fight for.
Life was absolutely perfect.
I had a beautiful community around me that supported me
and I always knew that I had to thank my mother for that.
Then I decided to move to Slovakia and my mother visited me here.
She did not really connect to Slovakia.
She did not really connect to what she saw here.
But she was positive about few things. She said WOW!
Slovakia in the contrary to the overcrowded and overdeveloped Netherlands
is a country that can really take care of its own agricultural production.
So she felt safe that I lived in a country
that could really take care of itself in a time of crisis.
[audience laughing]
You are all laughing!
And that has a reason.
Because you don't believe that your country is capable of something like that.
This is a truth that I did not want to tell my mom.
Because I didn't want to worry her.
Because... what... Should I tell her,
No mom, I live in a country where the majority of people
grew up within socialism
and they don't believe that there is a chance
to change things for the better
because after socialism there came corruption for 20 years?
And that most people are just burying their heads in the sand
as they saw their mothers and their grandmothers do?
That they don't believe
that you can change anything
because there are just few people in power
grabbing everything they can
whenever they can and leaving very little
for the weakest in society,
e.g. for healthcare and taking care for old people.
Was I gonna tell this to my mom?
No, I didn't tell her all this.
I told her what the reason is why I DO live in Slovakia.
The reason that I live here is that I met from the 1st second,
I mean the 1st person that I met in Slovakia
that really opened her heart for me was Bety Majernikova.
I was surrounded by people that were just amazing.
I could see that despite all this sht.
Despite all this...
The country that does not really work in a perfect way.
In a way that I knew about society and community.
They just do what they love.
Despite of everything.
And they would fight for what they wanted to do.
And I told her how great inspiration that is for me.
The next time I saw my mom I had to go to her.
Because she was very sick.
She could not leave her own bedroom.
She had cancer.
This was an amazing time.
I have to say that this was a great gift to be able to spend this time with my mom.
We used to sit and I used to massage her feet or her back.
One day we were just cuddling and sitting and she told me
"Illah", just out of the blue "I have to thank you.
I have to thank you for the fact that you were born."
And I looked at her and she said
"Yes, because you were born I learned what is most important in life.
And that is unconditional love and patience. "
Of course she died... maybe month later.
She died,
thanks to amazing healthcare system in the Netherlands,
in her own bedroom.
With her own surroundings, with her own family around her.
With flowers every day.
We were able to take care of her in her own bed.
We took night shifts and day shifts.
We had nurses and doctors coming taking care of her and giving her medicine.
So she died in the most wonderful way.
Two years later I was in a Slovak hospital
and I gave birth to a really beautiful beautiful little girl called Meda.
But instead of feeling this love and patience
I was so angry and so disappointed.
Because what happened was that
during my labor the nurses and doctors they were grumpy,
they were yelling at me and asking me weird questions.
The doctors just looked at their watch and they said
"OK. It's time. We're gonna take the baby.
And we're going to do a C-section on you."
Something that I agreed before that that was the last thing to do.
They put me under full anesthesia.
And they kept me in the bed for 4 hours when I woke up
without telling me if I had a baby or not.
So I was furious because I could not explain to myself,
Why the hell was I living in Slovakia?!
What came to my mind that I wanted to have
a child in this country and raise it here?
And so I fell out of my bubble of this beautiful positiveness
that I had from the beginning through all these people that I met.
I fell into the hard reality that all of you have experienced
in some way in this country.
I realized at that moment that I have to make a decision.
Either I'm going to get the hell out of here
or I'm gonna do something.
But what can I do?
I'm a photographer.
My field is the public space.
I made some nice books.
And I'm telling everybody: "Hey, man, these billboards you really don't need them."
But is that gonna make a better world?
I don't know.
One day I was sitting with my friend Barbara Zavarská
she is responsible for taking PechaKucha, for instance, to Slovakia.
We were talking
and complaining about Bratislava
and all of a sudden we came to this simple and small plan.
We said, We LOVE markets.
We miss markets here. So we´re gonna make a market.
We were thinking
what we should do --- Oh, Panenska ulica is perfect!!
It's in the center.
It's a beautiful one-way street so we can close it.
There's a beautiful caffee, there's a church that has a garden, there is a hostel, there's some shops
there's some design and jewelry store.
OK, we said, let's do it there.
We started by making research in the neighborhood - by questionnaire
asking people
'Can you imagine having a market in your street?'
And they said, NO!!
Well, then I asked them
'Would you like to have a market in your street?'
And they said, YES!
So I learned one thing: if a Slovak says something's not possible, you should do it.
[audience laughs and claps]
What happened was really amazing.
The city was absolutely cooperative.
We founded a facebook page and that was it.
All of the sudden people were calling me.
Everybody was calling me.
I was on vacation and this guy called me
Hi, I'm Honzik, we don't know each other but do you need help?
I said, What can you do? And he said he worked for the Greenpeace.
And I told him I needed a farmer who can sell vegetable at the market.
He said, OK, give me 2 days.
The lady from the jewelry store said:
"Hey, I have a band. I'll get my boys together and we'll play."
I remember, in the morning I was standing in the street.
It was completely silent and empty.
Except of the stands and people who were taking things out of the boxes.
There was this guy called Michal from Girraffe Bakery.
He started his business that day with his girlfriend.
They baked little cupcakes.
He was like: "I couldn't sleep last night
because I baked 700 cupcakes
and I'm afraid that I'm gonna take them home tonight."
And all these things were happening.
And all of the sudden people started to come.
Street full of people.
All of the sudden there was this crowd that did not stop.
If you here have been there for this 1st market you know the feeling.
Because it was really amazing.
I would see the same people at 11am and would still see them at 2pm
chatting and hanging out, their kids were playing
and they were drinking and buying or whatever,
meeting friends, dancing.
At 2pm I remember looking at Michal.
He was standing there with all these empty boxes around.
And he said, We sold everything!
And that was exactly the moment that I felt
Slovakia is hungry.
[speaker and audience alughing]
It's hungry for [audience clapping]
real things, real people that meet in real life.
Meeting real friends, or 2 or 5 at the same day.
What can be better than that?
Real food, good food, local food.
Real wine that's made in your region,
real bread that is like heavy - you can squeeze it and nothing happens to it.
[audience laughing]
This is when I realized that I had created my bubble.
I hadn't fallen out of my bubble or gone away.
But I had taken this bubble and I just invited all of you in it.
All these people came.
And the bubble just grew and grew and it became a hub,
a place for all these people to meet
and to do the things they love.
I realized that these nurses and doctors in the hospital,
they don't do what love.
Or they stopped doing what they love at some point.
I understand it's really difficult if you want to support local people
or local producers of local things.
But these are the people who do things with love
and do what they love.
But it's not going to be easy all the time.
I mean I created the market which is work that I love.
But last time it was really not funny.
There were some things that went wrong
and I went home really depressed and I was so sad.
In the morning I woke up and I saw on my table this bag.
I opened up the bag and I saw this bread.
Sorry but you know!
It's organic bread that is made in Modra.
And I saw this pot of honey that is made by family where the mother
and the grandmother were selling it.
And their son was on the farm
and the daughter was in the shop that they just opened in the center.
Then I saw the wine of these young kids
that are renewing the winery of their parents
that was destroyed during socialism.
Then I found another thing.
I found a book of this homeless guy that came to us in the market
and he paid us for his place where he was selling the book.
He gave us his book and he wrote
"Illah and Barbara, I am wishing you lot of smiles,
health and sometimes a full wallet.
And I realized, YES, this is it!!
All that I can do is to create an environment
where the people that do what they love
are stimulated to keep doing what they love.
And to keep loving what they do.
I remembered, this is what my mom was trying to tell me.
It's like in a marriage.
It's the same with work, it's the same with everything that you do.
Because you can do what you love.
You can marry the man that you love
but it's not always gonna be easy.
So you need patience and unconditional love
to keep loving this person.
To keep doing what you do.
This is what I can give as a gift to Slovakia.
Something I am doing with all these people
who are constantly calling me that they want to do something
perform or sell something.
Every day people are calling me and writing me.
I realized this is what I can do to help
to create a society that I am confident
that my daughter will feel very good in
and will feel that it's really normal to have this kind of luxury.
And I am very grateful for that.
And I want to thank you for this beautiful bag.
Because this work made me understand
what my mother was trying to tell me.
[Audience clapping]