TED speech Draft-2
Hello.
This blog is a record of Japanese artist, Hideki Tokushige, who are aiming to appear in TED conference overseas.
After my own translation, my English school teachers checked it.
When I talked the whole speech, it took 23 minutes.
TED conference speech time is 18 minutes.
So I prepared the talk of about 16 minutes by my tark speeed.
It was 11 minutes as measured by Google Translate audio. So, it will become about 13 minutes after adding time to show the photos.
In the end, I will memorize all this. So I chose as simple and known words as possible.
When I asked my friend to read it, he said it would be better to be shorter, about 10 minutes, and more philosophical. What should I do? I will mull over again.
TED speech Draft-2
Art Can Change the Image of Death
（Beginning）
Three years ago, I received this email.
(The text is displayed on the back screen)
Dear Hideki,
Your sculptures are beautiful.
I wonder, do you take bone donations?
I am looking for an artist to donate my bones to once I die, to be crafted into artworks.
I am not planning to die soon, but one never knows!
Warm regards, Anna
How mysterious it is!
She requested to use her bones for my artworks when she dies.
I didn't know this woman at that time.
Why did I receive such an unusual email?
I’ll talk about it.
（Main subject-1 Introduction of Bone Flowers）
I'm an artist.
These're my artworks.
Can you guess what these flowers are made of?
They're all made of animal bones and furs.
I use the original form.
I don't carve or cut.
I don't use wires or attachments.
I assemble to the same size as the actual flowers using only glue.
I'm looking for a common structure of nature between animals and plants.
This Narcissus is a combination of mouse's chin bones.
The Chinese lantern plant is made of the mouse's heads, tails, spines,
and many ribs.
The hydrangea petals are a combination of rat's scapulas.
Furs are reborn as leaves.
Then, when the flower is complete, I take photos.
After that, I take it to a place with a good view,
and respectfully bury them into the ground.
People often ask me, "Why don't you keep them?"
But I feel beauty lies in transiency.
Flowers are beautiful because they wither.
So, I don't preserve them.
I finally keep only the photos.
That means I only keep memories.
I've already made seventeen kinds of flowers.
My art values the whole process more than the object.
I named it “Honebana".
“Ho-ne” means bones in English, “Ba-na” means flowers.
("Honebana ＝Bones Flowers" is displayed on the screen)
I've already made seventeen kinds of flowers.
（Main subject-2 About the Frozen Rodents）
To make one whole flower, I use one hundred to two hundred bones at most.
They are rodents like mice and rats.
Where can I get so many of them?
That isn't they were killed for my artworks.
They're foods for pets.
Frozen mice and rats are born in the small cages, raised, killed, and sold in pet shops as the foods for big snakes and birds.
That surprised me and felt they're the symbol of the artificially managed nature of our modern society.
I dissect them one by one,
remove the fur and clean their bones.
It takes several months to finish one flower.
This bone-taking process takes the most time.
I'm a coward, don't like watching horror movies or seeing blood.
So to be honest, I disliked to touch frozen mice and rats at first.
The image of them is generally bad, isn't it?
Because they often carry pathogens.
But they're sold as pets foods, so don't have pathogenic bacteria.
Still, preconception remained me.
However, I gradually began to self-project to frozen mice and rats, and they became more familiar.
Rodents and humans are the same mammal, so their body structure is very similar.
I transform their lives into flowers as if they're reborn artistically.
（Main subject-3 Trigger, Experience of Raccoon Dog）
Why did I start using bones?
The trigger was this raccoon dog skull.
(I show the raccoon dog skull to the audience)
It was my first animal dissection.
I read a book called “The School of Bones" written by a junior high school science teacher.
That tells students how to make skeleton specimens.
It says raccoon dog is the most suitable animal for beginners.
Because of its medium size.
The problem is it's difficult to see a dead one.
One day in the morning, when I was driving a motor scooter in a mountain, I found a lying wild raccoon dog beside the road.
It was probably hit.
Blood had come out a little, but didn't have a deep wound.
I took it home cautiously.
Then, I laid it in the bathroom and opened the book “The School of Bones”.
That said, "First cut vertically on the belly".
However, I couldn't touch it directly, even look straight in to its eyes.
The worst thing was I couldn't distinguish if it was really dead.
It was cold, breathless, and no pulse.
But, I doubted it's just fainted.
If I cut it with the blade, it might regain consciousness, and run around my room with its bloody internal organs out.
Can you imagine?
It's a terrible nightmare, right?
If I wasn't hundred percent sure of its death, I couldn't cut it.
Despite the most basic, I couldn't tell even the distinction between life and death apart.
That fact brought me a heavy shock.
After I hesitated about three hours, I confirmed it didn't move any more.
I took courage and pressed the blade on its belly.
Still, my hands in the vinyl gloves trembled and didn't move forward.
While, a strange feeling gradually hit me.
The parts I cut nervously were similar to the "Chicken thighs" sold at stores.
What's the difference between this dead raccoon dog and the chicken?
Both are the same “dead animal”.
Despite my head told me so, my hands refused to coordinate.
With such a strange feeling, I took the bones out finally.
I don't remember how many hours it took.
When it was over, I was just badly exhausted .
After I come back to my senses, I realized.
At the throat of the raccoon dog, there was like a drainage hose bellow the washing machine.
Oh, that was a trachea.
At the chest, there was like a film.
Oh, that was a diaphragm.
I knew the both words trachea and diaphragm, but not at all.
Raccoon dogs and humans are the same mammal too.
I had lived for decades but didn't know anything about my body structure.
(I show the raccoon skull again)
"You know nothing about life and death"
Its seemed to talk to me.
（Main subject-4 Bone and Flower Connect）
After that, I went to Tokyo to become a professional photographer.
But it wasn't easy.
As a forklift driver, I went back and forth between the factory and my home every day.
While struggling, I was constantly seeking “Photos that only I can take”.
It was dusk in a cold winter.
I finally received a revelation to break through the depressed situation.
When I passed a busy intersection, it began to rain.
I entered a nearby cafe to shelter, and gazed at out from the second-floor window.
The rain gets stronger, and the asphalt gets wet and darker.
Cars come and go, and tail lights reflect in the rain.
People walk fast.
At the intersection, some umbrellas open.
The scenery looked like lotus flowers blooming on the surface of the water.
At that moment, I saw a vision of lotus flowers made of bones in the city.
Aha! It's a flower!
The idea of “making flowers out of bones” came down from heaven.
Flower is a symbol of beauty and life for all cultures and religions.
The act of laying flowers on the dead is universal, beyond race.
Also, lotus flower in the mud is known as holy one in the Orient.
I immediately went home and started looking for a way.
After much trial and error, I finally got my first works, Lotus, in bloom.
After that, I continued this art for more than ten years.
During the time, the raccoon dog voiced, “You don't know anything about life and death”.
Looking back now, I feel Honebana was my answers to the voice.
Honebana combines conflicting elements.
Life and death, animals and plants, beauty and ugliness, colors and monochrome, natural and artificial, and creation and destruction.
I believe the important role of the artist is to consider the divided values and reconnect them fundamentally.
（Conclusion About Anna's Email Again）
This speech is finally coming to a close.
Let's get back from the beginning.
Anna who sent me that email is an English writer and published two books.
She possesses a donor card and wants to donate not only blood and organs but also bones.
We began to exchange many ideas about our past, the power of imagination, and our common ground.
After that, I began to seriously consider her offer.
Also, now I wanna extend this adventurous attempt to others more.
"You bloom as the art"
That's the next “Honebana Project” as a new funeral and a new art.
I started collaborative research with the optical instrument manufacturer.
We're aiming to develop a special 3D printer, that uses the powder of real human bones.
There's no such device in the world yet.
With this device, we can make beautiful flowers with delicate and thin details like a graceful lace by human bones.
Anna hopes to become a poppy flower.
She said, it isn't for the association with fallen soldiers, but for its silky combination of resilience and fragility.
（photo）
In general, modern society tends to cover up death as negative.
Death is hated as a taboo.
Some people would say "I 'm open to death, no taboo".
Such people also try to consider this.
Your funeral, you're the main character, is your life's culmination.
Have you ever thought about that design deeply in the same way as the hairstyle you decide every morning, the shirt you wear on a date, and the lighting in the bedroom?
People are not all standard products.
Every life is different.
If so, shouldn't there be as many designs of funeral as there’re lives?
I wanna change the concept of death using art.
More beautiful, more positive, and be more true to yourself.
I propose a new design that reflects our lives in a form of self-expression.
Art can change the image of death.
I learned it from that raccoon dog and frozen mice and rats.
And, now from here, the next new adventure begins.
I'm very grateful to be able to share this memorable first step with you.
Let's make a new way of death for each person together.
Finally, I'll finish this speech with my favorite Anna's phrase.
（The text is displaryed on the back screen, and I read the sentence）
Much of what we do is motivated by short-term gain, whereas art can provoke us to think beyond our lifetimes.
Thank you.
How was it?
I would be encouraged if you give me your thoughts, advice.
Thank you for reading.
