An art movement built on ancestral wisdom - Jackie Lebo

一场建立在祖先智慧之上的艺术运动——杰基·莱博

You're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host Elise Hugh. What lives at the nexus of traditional societies and modernity? When filmmaker, photographer and writer Jackie Lebo went to the Terrana region in northern Kenya to make a film that explored this question, she thought it would be a project about oil discovery and the nomadic people of the region. Instead, it turned into a deep exploration of pastoralist identity and the power of resource sharing and creative collaboration.

您正在收听TED Talks Daily，我们每天为您带来激发好奇的新思想。我是主持人Elise Hugh。是什么存在于传统社会与现代性的交汇点？当电影制作人、摄影师兼作家杰基·莱博前往肯尼亚北部的泰拉纳地区拍摄一部探讨此问题的电影时，她以为这会是一个关于石油发现和当地游牧民族的项目。然而，它却变成了一次对牧民身份、资源共享与创意合作力量的深入探索。

In her talk, she shares how this journey transformed her understanding of culture and community, and how collective action can generate meaningful art that renews a sense of humanity. And after the talk, stick around for a special performance from singer Elizabeth Cory Ke, who is from the Terana region, and Nairobi-based guitarist Eddie Gray, playing music from the Terrana Sessions project, which explores the musical heritage of the region, along with other styles.

在她的演讲中，她分享了这段旅程如何改变了她对文化和社区的理解，以及集体行动如何能创造出更新人性意识的有意义艺术。演讲结束后，请留下欣赏来自泰拉纳地区的歌手伊丽莎白·科里·克和内罗毕吉他手埃迪·格雷的特别表演，他们将演奏来自“泰拉纳录音”项目的音乐，该项目探索该地区的音乐遗产及其他风格。

Where I come from, we greet people: How are you? How are the children? How are the cattle? Is it raining? So how are you? How are the children? How are the cattle? Do you have cattle? Do you have moose? No? Okay. Is it raining though? Yeah, I think you should ask for some.

在我来的地方，我们这样问候别人：你好吗？孩子们好吗？牛群好吗？下雨了吗？所以你好吗？孩子们好吗？牛群好吗？你有牛吗？你有驼鹿吗？没有？好吧。那下雨了吗？是的，我想你该祈求些雨水。

So I went to Turkan in 2014 to make a film. Turkana is in the northernmost part of Kenya and the people there have been marginalized for so long that they don't identify as Kenyans. Post-independence policies had focused all the resources of the new country in the agriculturally rich south, but now with the discovery of oil, Kenya was laying claim to Turkana just one generation before my family was compelled by the twin forces of modernity and colonialism to transition away from a life of nomadic pastoralism.

于是我于2014年前往图尔坎拍摄一部电影。图尔卡纳位于肯尼亚最北部，那里的人们长期被边缘化，以至于他们不认同自己是肯尼亚人。独立后的政*将新国家的所有资源集中于农业富庶的南方，但如今随着石油的发现，肯尼亚正声称对图尔卡纳的所有权——而就在我家族被迫在现代化和殖民*义的双重压力下从游牧生活转型的前一代人。

My grandfather would still tell stories of wandering up and down the Rift Valley with their animals that seemed so far removed from the life we lived now. And he would be like, "This is you," pointing to pictures of Maasai people in full traditional regalia. And I was like, "No, no, no, those are the guys who live in National Geographic."

我的祖父仍会讲述他们带着牲畜在裂谷上下游荡的故事，那似乎与我们如今的生活相距甚远。他会指着身着全套传统服饰的马赛人照片说：“这就是你们。”而我则会说：“不，不，不，那些是生活在《国家地理》杂志里的人。”

So we went into the project believing that people wanted a fair share of the oil revenues, which they did, but they wanted so much more. They wanted water and security to continue with their pastoralist way of life because it was part of their culture and identity.

因此我们带着人们想要公平分享石油收益的信念进入这个项目，他们确实想要，但他们想要的远不止于此。他们需要水和安全保障以延续其牧民生活方式，因为这是他们文化与身份的一部分。

This forced us to think of new ways of being in the world that we hadn't previously considered. I'm going to talk about how Turkana taught us to creatively collaborate, and then how that taught us to come together, share revenues and share our humanity.

这迫使我们思考此前未曾考虑过的、存在于世的新方式。我将讲述图尔卡纳如何教会我们创造性合作，以及这又如何教会我们团结一致、分享收益并分享我们的人性。

Turkana is organized in units called areas, which have rights to particular grazing points and watering lands, and this is more like a custodianship than an ownership. And it had led organizations on the ground to think of new sharing models that were based on the culture rather than copy-pasting from economies that had been doing this for longer. So instead of putting all the resources into our documentary, which could be made by literally three people, we decided to make something bigger that could bring in many more artists.

图尔卡纳以称为“区域”的单位组织，这些单位拥有特定牧场和水源地的使用权，这更像是监护权而非所有权。这促使当地组织思考基于文化的新共享模式，而非从已实践更久的经济体中复制粘贴。因此，我们没有将所有资源投入仅需三人就能完成的纪录片，而是决定创作一个更宏大的项目，以吸引更多艺术家参与。

So we brought together ten artists, five from Nairobi and five from Turkana, and embarked on a tour of the county. We went to the oil fields in the south and danced with an Edog group. In Nakuru we went to Turkana Basin Institute and saw fossils that were millions of years old. We went to Central Island and visited tilapia, crocodile and flamingo lakes. We went swimming in Lake Turkana under a full moon that made the lake look like milk.

于是我们汇集了十位艺术家——五位来自内罗毕，五位来自图尔卡纳，开始了在该县的巡游。我们前往南部的油田，与埃多格族群体共舞。在纳库鲁，我们参观了图尔卡纳盆地研究所，看到了数百万年的化石。我们前往中央岛，探访了罗非鱼湖、鳄鱼湖和火烈鸟湖。我们在满月下图尔卡纳湖中游泳，月光让湖水如牛奶般洁白。

We were assured that the crocodiles stayed on their side and the people stayed on their side. And anyway, there was the rule of ten: if ten of you were swimming, there was only a 10% chance you'd be beaten by a croc. We went to a cattle camp near the river Turkwel and slept on hides on the ground. It suddenly made so much sense to me why we greet the way we do: How are you? How are the children? How are the cattle? Is it raining? Those had been the essential elements of our lives for generations. Without cattle we would not survive. Without the rain, the cattle would not survive. Without descendants who tell our stories when we are gone.

我们得到保证，鳄鱼待在它们那边，人待在人的这边。无论如何，这里存在“十人法则”：如果你们十个人在游泳，你被鳄鱼袭击的几率只有10%。我们去了图尔克韦尔河附近的一个牛营，睡在地上的兽皮上。我突然深刻理解了为何我们那样问候：你好吗？孩子们好吗？牛群好吗？下雨了吗？这些是世世代代我们生活的根本要素。没有牛，我们无法生存；没有雨水，牛无法生存；没有在我们离世后讲述我们故事的后代。

I felt a deep connection with my grandfather, in fact. We all came out of that journey profoundly moved. Perhaps it was lying down on the sand and watching the flights to Europe and the Middle East pass overhead, and thinking that this was the same path our human ancestors took tens of thousands of years ago to populate the earth. Perhaps it was opening up yourself to the moment, in the place where we first evolved connection, cooperation, compassion—the very things we define as humanity. So we started to make work from that basis.

事实上，我感到与祖父产生了深刻的联结。我们都深受感动地结束了那段旅程。或许是躺在沙地上，看着飞往欧洲和中东的航班掠过天空，并想到这正是数万年前我们人类祖先迁徙繁衍、遍布地球的同一路线。或许是在我们最初发展出联结、合作、同情心——这些我们定义为人性的特质——的地方，向当下敞开了自我。于是我们开始基于此进行创作。

And our shared experiences, plus the new discoveries, made work that exceeded our individual capabilities. From our first project, it's called "The Flyers Sweating in Africa," we imagined what the clothes would look like if we took from what we had seen, rather than white dresses and taxis. And this is our second project, it's called "Floating Flying." We shot it in and around Lake Turkana, which is one of our biggest sources of inspiration. And we imagined our muse, who was also a guardian of the lake.

我们共同的经历加上新的发现，创造出了超越个人能力的作品。我们的第一个项目名为“非洲汗湿的飞行者”，我们想象如果我们从所见中汲取灵感，服装会是什么样子，而不是白色的裙子和出租车。这是我们的第二个项目，名为“漂浮飞翔”。我们在图尔卡纳湖及周边拍摄，那里是我们最大的灵感源泉之一。我们想象我们的缪斯，她也是湖泊的守护者。

So what we learnt is that through collaboration, we align with higher values. The false notion that we can harm others or even our planet without harming ourselves cannot stand. True connectedness and participation in something greater than ourselves contribute immensely to happiness, self-worth and reaffirm our humanity.

因此我们学到，通过合作，我们与更高的价值观保持一致。那种认为我们可以伤害他人甚至地球而不伤及自身的错误观念站不住脚。真正的联结以及参与比自我更伟大的事物，极大地促进了幸福、自我价值，并重申了我们的人性。

This is our third photo series, it's called "Oil and Milk and We Are the Land of Milk." So we were imagining the effect that oil would have on our way of life. And this is our first foray into music, Elizabeth and Ed Gray, and we did this during the pandemic so we're not expecting much, but it has turned out to be our most beloved and successful project to date. So with this work under our belt, we started to look for an agent so that we could showcase their work and they were like, "Who's the artist?" And we were like, "All of us," and they were like, "I can't sell that."

这是我们的第三个摄影系列，名为“石油与牛奶，我们是牛奶之地”。我们由此想象石油将对我们的生活方式产生的影响。这是我们首次涉足音乐领域，与伊丽莎白和埃德·格雷合作，我们在疫情期间完成了它，因此并未抱太大期望，但这却成为了我们迄今最受喜爱和最成功的项目。于是，带着这些作品，我们开始寻找经纪人以便展示作品，而他们问：“艺术家是谁？”我们说：“我们所有人。”他们则说：“这我卖不了。”

So we built our own platform, the Nomadic Arts Festival, to continue this work and to continue sharing with so many more artists and bringing in ancient and contemporary art forms. We will close today with two songs created for the inaugural edition of the festival: "El Lotto" is a young woman's plea not to be married off to a man she doesn't love, and "At Care" is a celebration of our home region. Thank you.

于是我们创建了自己的平台——“游牧艺术节”，以继续这项工作，继续与更多艺术家分享，并引入古老和当代的艺术形式。今天我们将以为音乐节首届活动创作的两首歌曲结束：《El Lotto》是一位年轻女子恳求不要被嫁给她不爱的男人的心声，《At Care》则是对我们家乡的颂歌。谢谢。

That was Jackie Lebo, followed by Elizabeth Cory Ke and Eddie Gray at TED 2025.

以上是杰基·莱博在TED 2025的演讲，随后是伊丽莎白·科里·克和埃迪·格雷的表演。