Theme: U-Turn

On November 21st 2015, TEDxUppsalaUniversity provided you with another afternoon filled with inspiring, educative and personal insights revolving around the theme: U-turn.

U-turn: an enigma, a complete change of plans, ideas, policies or directions. In the course of everyone’s life, there is a turning point. It could be for the better, it could be for the worse but one thing’s for sure – it is a significant moment that will have an impact on the rest of your life.

Making a “U-Turn” is about going against the grain, refusing to conform, taking the road less travelled instead of the well-beaten path, or maybe it is just simply a change of heart, a different perspective, a new take on how to live your life. By inviting a range of speakers from different disciplines and diverse backgrounds, with their own “u-turn” moments, we aim to inspire courage, provoke thoughts and spark change.

What's your U-Turn?
P.S. Feel free to support us with the hashtag #uturn

Trädgårdsgatan 5
Uppsala, Uppsala län, 75309
Sweden

Ewa Stackelberg

Photogramer

Ewa Stackelberg was initially a documentary photographer working in Sweden and abroad. Her life changed drastically when the man who had been her husband for twenty years died in an airplane accident in October 1997. She found her world shattered and trying to master reality by making depictions of it was no longer possible. The only solution was to find another language. She started to make photograms - photographic images without a camera, produced on photosensitive material, a method were chance and exploration are important ingredients. In her darkroom she wanted to find the origin of all things and suddenly another world appeared from something as concrete as soil, intestines, leaves, water and clay. A long journey had started, with both death and life present. The exhibition ”Photograms” was presented in Fotografiska in Stockholm february - april 2015.

Gry Worre Hallberg

Founder of Sisters Academy

Sisters Academy is a school in a world and society where the sensuous and poetic mode of being is at the center of all action and interaction. Sisters Academy is the school in an imagined future world that Gry terms a Sensuous society – A potential new world arising from the post-economic and ecological crisis. Gry Worre Hallberg is the co-founder of a range of organisations and movements within the field of performing arts, among those the Sisters Academy. Gry moves from the intention to democratize the aesthetic and Sisters Academy is a perfect reflection of just that. Gry is also the artistic director and head curator of the sustainability project Dome of Visions, the performance curator of the Roskilde festival and external lecturer at Performance Design, Roskilde University.

Jill Trenholm

Nurse and Lecturer

Jill is a lecturer at Uppsala University, she is an experienced nurse in hospital-based trauma units and has worked in a variety of other areas related to Peace and Conflict and International Health.

Joakim Medin

Freelance Journalist

In 2014, when he was covering the humanitarian crisis in Syria, Medin was arrested by the Syrian government and was kept in isolation in a 3-by-6-foot cell. After heavy interrogation he was moved to Damascus for further questioning. It was only after the intervention of Syrian Kurdish officials that Medin and his translator were finally released.

Lina Sors Emilsson

Researcher, Lecturer & CEO

Lina is a researcher in neurobiology at the University of Uppsala and an entrepreneur in health technology. As a researcher and lecturer Lina has during the last 15 years been devoted to investigate and teach about the connection between genes, brain and behavior. Three years ago, she suffered from a benign tumor that among other symptoms affected her ability to walk.

Nina Cavalli-Björkman

Oncologist

Nina Cavalli-Björkman is an oncologist who has worked in a variety of hospitals throughout Sweden. During her medical career she has witnessed an enormous amount of U-turns: some for the better, but most for the worse. "People come into my consultation room with a referral saying that they have a newly diagnosed, widely spread melanoma – just as they were about to retire. Or have their first baby. Or take the trip of their dreams.. this is the saddest part of my work: facing people who have lived their life on hold and saved the pleasure for a later date, only to find themselves facing me, with that referral in my hand." In her TED-talk Nina explores how, as humans, we find ways to cope with life’s involuntary u-turns. How does the human brain respond to shocking and hurtful information? What instincts do we utilize to survive in that moment? How does a person go through years of illness and face repetitive bad news at doctor’s appointments during a period of progressive disease?

Oscar Erixson

Economist

Oscar received his Ph.D. in 2013. His research is mainly empirically oriented with a focus on intergenerational wealth transfers. Current research projects include the analysis of the effects of wealth shocks on economic behavior and health as well as the determinants of intra-household distributions of wealth. He have also studied human behavior and social norms under extreme stress and high stakes.

Polly Higgins

Expert on Ecocide law

Whereas our world has been particularly concerned with the crimes inflicted on human beings, Polly Higgins has devoted her life to putting on trial those who make decisions that lead to significant harm to nature and communities. Harming nature does not only qualify as an eco-crime, it is often a leadership crime, a corporate crime, and/or a crime against peace. Polly Higgins was the Honorary Arne Naess Professor at Oslo University (non-academic), she's a guest lecturer at numerous universities including School of Advanced Studies, University of London, Uppsala and Vancouver. She is a recipient of an Honoris Causa Business Doctorate from the Business School of Lausanne, Switzerland and was named ‘One of the world’s top ten visionary thinkers’ by the Ecologist Magazine. Furthermore, she has won the Peoples Book Award for her first book 'Eradicating Ecocide' and recently published her most recent book 'I dare you to be great'.