TEDxJoburg: The Power to Lift

TedX Johannesburg - The Power to Lift by Ingrid Martens

How do you tell a thousand stories, from a vast continent? You start by acknowledging the wide angle and close-up in every story. This is what came out of ‘Africa Shafted’, Ingrid Martens highly acclaimed documentary, shot entirely inside the Ponte Towers elevator, one of the tallest buildings in Johannesburg and home to foreign nationals from across the continent. In this TEDxJohannesburg 2014 talk, she skillfully uses a series of video clips to make the point that we all have the power to lift ourselves if we zoom into the close-ups and step over the wide angles that divide us.

“When you hear voodoo you think crazy black folk. When you hear starvation you think Ethiopia. When you hear third world, you SEE Africa, right? Award winning journalist Ingrid Martens's beautifully profound Ted Talk not only refreshingly tears to shreds our stereotypes of the vast continent but gets to the heart of the power within us all to view life from the "close up" - and the miracles that can be achieved with this tiny shift in perspective.” Trish Malone