TEDxJacksonville: Swimmin' with Existential Gators

Aman Mojadidi on Swimmin' with Existential Gators

The Afghan artist and TED Fellow Aman Mojadidi’s talk is based on his personal experience of growing up as an American citizen in a world that is simultaneously globalized and fractured. “[It’s] because of this,” he observes, “this negotiating myself through a life lived in the in-between, always having to respond to that question ‘Where are you from?’ and never really knowing how to answer, that I have had to rethink a lot about what it even means to be ‘from’ somewhere.”

Exploring the themes of identity politics, conflict, and the push to and resistance against modernization, Mojadidi’s TEDxJacksonville talk documents how his own “Geography of Self” began to take new shape, and how Jacksonville became a much more complex place within it. “I’ve realized,” said Mojadid, “that perhaps I had stereotyped Jacksonville in the same way I had accused Jacksonville of stereotyping me.”

Aman Mojadidi 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.


This talk comes from TEDxJacksonville's 2014 conference. Connect with TEDxJacksonville here.