Theme: Navigating The Unknown - to create a world worth having.

TEDxKC tickets go on sale 10 AM, June 12: https://tickets.kauffmancenter.org/22856

Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
1601 Broadway Blvd.
Muriel Kauffman Theater
Kansas City, Missouri, 64108
United States

Clancy Martin

Author, Professor, Suicide Preventer

Clancy Martin, Ph.D., is professor of philosophy at UMKC. His research covers the ethics of social and behavioral health, especially in the areas of suicide prevention and the treatment of addiction, and the use of storytelling as part of the therapeutic process. He has published more than 10 books on a variety of subjects, mostly philosophical, including two novels. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wal Street Journal, Ethics, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Harper's, and dozens of other magazines, journals, and newspapers. His work has been optioned for movies and television and has been translated into more than 30 languages, and he has won a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other fellowships and awards.

Eric Gottesman

Artist, Guggenheim Fellow, Activist

Eric Gottesman teaches, organizes, writes, and makes artworks in concert with other people. His work addresses nationalism, migration, structural violence, history, and intimate relations. His projects question accepted notions of power and, by engaging communities in critical self-reflection and creative expression, propose models for repair. Eric's work is always collaborative; he has never made an artwork alone. He is a mentor in the Arab Documentary Photography Program in Beirut, Lebanon. Eric has presented his art projects at health conferences and universities, in government buildings, on the televised opening of the NFL season, on Indigenous reservations, in post-war rubble, and at museums.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Filmmaker, Documentarian, Series Streamer

Gabriela Cowperthwaite has been directing both documentaries and narrative films for over 20 years, rising to prominence with the 2013 release of "Blackfish," which examined the plight of orcas and their trainers at SeaWorld. "Blackfish" quickly became one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time. In addition to being shortlisted for an Academy Award, "Blackfish" was nominated for a BAFTA, a Broadcast Critics' Awards, and an International Documentary Association Award, and won the Satellite Award for Best Feature. Gabriela helmed "Children of the Underground," an FX/Hulu series. The series was nominated in 2023 for an Independent Spirit Award for best documentary series. Gabriela's latest documentary "The Grab," a geopolitical thriller, follows a shadowy world of powerful entities who are grabbing up the world's food and water while we all look the other way. "The Grab" opened TIFF in 2022 and was hailed as the "holy sh*t documentary of the year."