Chee Pearlman

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended how we think about the workplace. TED curator Chee Pearlman and James Ludwig, vice president of global design and product engineering at Steelcase, discuss how we can use this time as an opportunity to reflect on what matters most – and make the office of the future even better in the process. (Recorded June 16, 2020)

Cities are engines of culture, commerce, knowledge and community, but they're also centers of inequality and poverty. As the world rebuilds from the coronavirus pandemic, can we transform cities into bastions of equity and sustainability? Architect and educator Vishaan Chakrabarti discusses a new urban agenda that provides equitable housing, health care and transportation for all -- and helps build cities rooted in our desire to connect at a human level. "We need a new narrative of generosity, not austerity," he says. (This virtual conversation, hosted by TED arts and design curator Chee Pearlman and head of curation Helen Walters, was recorded June 10, 2020.)

Museums are vessels of memory, knowledge, inspiration and dreams. Anne Pasternak, director of the Brooklyn Museum, makes the case for cultural institutions to take a leading role in supporting the world's recovery from COVID-19 -- and shows how, in times of turmoil and disruption, the arts help us come together, heal and rebuild a better society. (This virtual conversation, hosted by TED arts and design curator Chee Pearlman, was recorded June 17, 2020.)

Poet and policymaker Aaron Maniam describes how the language we use to explain COVID-19 shapes the way we think about it -- whether it's as a "war," a "journey" or, as he suggests, an "ecology." He encourages us to explore a range of imaginative, interlocking metaphors to gain a deeper understanding of the pandemic -- and shows how this can help us to envision a better, more inclusive future. (This virtual conversation, hosted by TED's head of curation Helen Walters and arts and design curator Chee Pearlman, was recorded June 10, 2020.)