Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
I have no problem going 300 feet down an illegal mine in Africa,
documenting modern-day slavery;
what scares me is being here,
talking to you all of you about myself.
So, here goes.
When I was a little girl, my mother used to say to me,
"Lisa, always remember who you are."
My mother and I were very connected,
but my childhood was chaotic and unpredictable.
I'd take solace in imagining that I was somewhere far away.
I'd hide in my room with my little stuffed animals
and my mother's National Geographics,
and I'd marvel at the seemingly ancient people living so close to the earth
that their feather-and-mud-covered bodies resembled the earth itself.
"These people must be grounded somehow," I thought.
"They must know things that I need to know in order to survive in the world."
And I resolved that as soon as I could, I would go find them and I'd ask.
I left the United States when I was 18,
for five years,
and I found people from whose example of living
might teach me some grace in my own life.
I met with them, lived in their villages,
spent time with them and got to know them.
I would take these 30-day bouts of sitting alone in a cave in silence.
During those years, I was looking for meaning,
and all the while, I was making images.
I wasn't photographing to be a photographer, though;
I was photographing to find my way in the world.
When I'm asked what my process is,
I always say it's simply about being in awe of another human being,
and not in a Mount Everest kind of way, but the simple kind of awe
one gets from seeing another that lives a life of gratitude.
I truly believe that if we're all connected
and we can see one another as fellow human beings,
then it becomes very difficult to tolerate abuses
or to see one another as less than equal.
We all share the gift of our first breath,
the adventures of all our lives
and, indeed, the mystery of death.
What separates us is fear and, perhaps, the idea that we're separate.
I've been documenting indigenous cultures
in more than seventy countries on six continents.
I've learned a lot of the answers that I've been looking for,
some of which I've brought here to share with you.
I don't consider myself a photojournalist;
I really consider myself a witness.
The Chimbu warriors march in groups of hundreds
so that their matching footfall actually makes the earth tremble,
like a herd of wild horses running by.
The largest amount of spoken languages in the world are in this country.
Not dialects, but actual languages.
You can see that all these people are dressed alike,
but if we were to venture just a few kilometers away
to a nearby tribe,
we would see they had their own very distinct and unique look.
In this age, we know our world
through the familiarity of our own clans and the differences of others.
But what strikes me is how we experience them.
Why is it that we so often respond in fear to someone's difference,
seeing them as unfamiliar and, therefore, unsafe
instead of with wonder or curiosity?
I heard this great quote recently:
"An enemy is someone whose story you haven't heard yet."
Look into this man's eyes.
Is he dangerous?
Or kind?
Or both?
Does he love his family and his tribe the way that you love yours?
Look at this woman.
Tell me, is she rich or is she poor?
She's one of the Akha, one of the poorest minorities of the hill tribes.
Two hundred years ago, the Akha migrated from Tibet
to the northern mountains of what are now considered Thailand.
She's one of the members of the last generation
that will likely adorn themselves in these stunning, traditional headdresses
that they've worn for centuries.
When I met her in her very small, impoverished hut,
she appeared like royalty to me.
Children are astounding; they're natural-born gazers.
I met this little girl at a monastery in Bhutan
that was built solely for the purpose of blessing children.
Can you imagine?
After I made this image,
she smiled at me and vanished around the corner.
When I think of my own children, I note their innate trust toward others.
And in fact, when we travel together, they instantly make friends,
and they're never hindered by a foreign language.
When is it that we lose that?
One morning,
I had an appointment to meet the abbot of a monastery in Thailand.
As I was nearing the temple grounds,
I was struck by this sudden guttural roar of this wild, unseen animal.
As I neared nearer and went around a bend,
this is what I saw:
the abbot of the monastery sitting with a full-grown tiger in his lap,
like his favorite housecat.
But this relationship is impossible, no?
Yet here it was, these unlikely friends,
this implausible pair,
clearly enjoying one another's companionship.
This is one of my most popular images,
and I think it's because it sort of short circuits your way of thinking.
Your mind is saying, "Oh, this is very beautiful,"
while your gut is saying, "This is instinctively wrong somehow."
(Laughter)
And then you stand back and you pause, and you think, "What is it?"
What can be born if there is enough trust and reverence and respect?
What relationship can come from that premise?
The Naxi women of China
are one of the last matriarchal societies in the world.
These women have known each other their entire lives,
probably since the day they were born.
I love their sense of familiarity and companionship together.
The woman in the front row with a white head wrap is a widow,
and here she's seen telling a story about her late husband.
You can see, they're all getting a bit of a chuckle about it,
but what I love is that it's sort of this microcosm of our global community
and a reminder about what is possible when we're all in it together.
As I was exiting the enormous doors of the Gangtey Monastery in Bhutan,
I saw a monk standing on the edge of a cliff, observing nature.
A gust of wind rose up and blew his robe into the air
so that he suddenly appeared like a bird to me,
ready to take flight.
I call this image "Transcendence."
While I was in Bhutan,
I met with the Secretary General of the Monastic Body of Bhutan,
and over a series of dinners and teas,
he spoke about the importance of his people being mindful at a wake,
to have a sense of devotion toward themselves and their community,
their country and environment;
that everyone alive is a part of our community,
and the world is our home.
Now this is a nun - not a monk but a nun -
and she lives some 14,000 feet up in the Himalayas in Tibet.
She's spent the great majority of her long life in prayer and meditation.
But the beauty is she's not just praying
for herself or for her nunnery or for her people;
she's praying for you, and she's praying for me and for all of us,
and she meditates to gain enlightenment,
but within the Bodhisattva tradition
has vowed not to take it herself
until all other beings have it in their own grasp.
To me, that, that is enlightenment.
Since 2010, I've been documenting modern-day slavery
to help out an NGO called Free the Slaves.
A conservative estimate tells us
that there are 27 million people enslaved today.
Entire families can be enslaved for generations
over a debt as small as $17.
Many have been tricked by false promises
of good jobs or an education
only to find that they're forced to work under the threat of violence
and they cannot walk away.
Slavery is illegal everywhere in the world,
and yet it occurs nearly everywhere.
This young boy is likely still pounding stone in an illegal mine
for 18 hours a day if he is still alive.
It's hard to fathom that slavery still exists today
or to know that we might be able to do anything about it,
but change is possible,
and slavery can be eradicated.
Slaveholders burned down the homes of these villagers
when they tried to declare their freedom.
And many of the neighbors wanted to give up
because they were so frightened.
But the woman in the center here rallied them to persevere,
and abolitionists on the ground helped them get a quarry lease of their own
so that now they do the same back-breaking work,
but they get paid for it and they do it in freedom, for themselves.
And now I want to introduce you to this astonishing boy, Kofi.
Kofi was rescued from a fishing village on Lake Volta.
I met Kofi in a shelter where Free the Slaves helps to rehabilitate
people and victims of slavery.
Here he's seen taking a bath,
pouring big buckets of water over his head at a well at the shelter.
And the beautiful thing is that as you and I are sitting here talking,
Kofi has been reunited with his parents, and once again, he is with his family.
And speaking of family, imagine a greater one.
Imagine being in the midst of 72 million people,
the largest gathering in mankind's history,
by leap and bounds.
This is India's Kumbha Mela festival.
If you see all that noise on the horizon,
that's just humanity as far as the eye can see.
And you'll notice, too, that the bridges are all being passed in one direction
because of the density of the human traffic.
Pilgrims walk for hundreds of miles, largely on foot,
to arrive to this amazing festival
at a very specific time in the lunar calendar
when they believe their karma will be washed away and they'll be liberated.
India has taught me so much about life and, indeed, about death.
When my mother was dying,
we made an agreement that when she passed, I would have to find her in new ways.
She said, "Lisa, you can find me in the wind when I'm gone
or the scent of a rose."
My mother died when she was 60 years old,
and on the anniversary of her death,
I brought some of her ashes with me to India.
I gathered together 60 leaves and 60 candles,
and I placed her ashes and a candle in each one.
And then I lit each one and set them on the river
to go down into the distance.
She's all over the world now; it's astounding.
As I watched the lights fade into the distance,
I remembered one other thing she told me.
She said, "Lisa, you will find me in the decisions that you make."
Recently, I've been working on a project on the ancients,
those people that live more than a hundred years.
It's astonishing.
These people are the keepers of knowledge and sometimes generations of wisdom.
On one day, I had the great privilege of meeting a woman that was 110 years old.
Can you imagine?
After I was done photographing her,
I knelt at her feet, and I took her hands in mine,
and I gazed into her eyes.
She looked back at me very intently,
and she spoke slowly and deliberately at first
and then very quickly and passionately.
Now, I don't speak much Italian, let alone any Sardinian,
but I knew that she was telling me everything I needed to know.
She went on for some time until her nieces,
who were well into their 80s themselves,
shook her and said, "Be quiet, woman, she doesn't understand you.
No capisce."
And the ancient woman turned back and she said,
"Of course she understands me.
You be quiet.
She's a child of the gods, and she understands all languages."
I look to elders to teach me how to live.
I know that though their lives and experiences are different than my own,
that by being in their presence,
some of that will be imparted to me, somehow.
And it has.
So what have I learned about how to live?
I think it's important not to believe that there's only one way to be alive.
There are so many ways to find meaning.
And it's true that though we have our differences in life,
those very differences are some of the things that unite us.
I found the answer I was looking for,
the secret that the elders passed down from generation to generation,
and I'll tell you what I know.
It was simply this:
help each other.
It's the most basic thing, but it was said in various ways,
like, "If your neighbor runs out of milk, share yours."
What is possible when we see each other as equals?
What is possible when we remember that we are all children of the gods,
and we all share the same language,
and we all share one breath?
Thank you.
(Applause)