TEDxAdelaideSalon

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Damien Shen

  Artist

  Damien Shen is a South Australian man of Ngarrindjeri and Chinese descent. As an artist he draws on both of these powerful cultural influences to create works of intense personal meaning. In using his artistic talent to share his story he aims to open the eyes of viewers to new ways of seeing Australian identity and Aboriginal art. Ten years ago Damien put away his pencils and paints in return for a stable income, but his passion for art did not leave him.This passion returned in full force in 2013. During a solo holiday around Australia Damien visited the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art and came across works by Vernon Ah Kee, a renowned Australian Aboriginal Artist, in an exhibition titled “My country, I still call Australia home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia.” Standing in front of Ah Kee’s works, Damien asked two questions of himself: 1.   Can I still draw? 2.   If I can, could I get my work into a major gallery? Damien has been exhibiting solidly since.

• Diego García-Bellido

  Palaeontologist

  Diego started working on Burgess Shale-type Cambrian fossils in 1994 at the University of Cambridge UK, while he was still doing his Biology Degree in the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain). He joined the Royal Ontario Museum’s excavations at the Burgess Shale in 1995, 1997 and 2000. He presented his PhD on Palaeozoic sponges from Spain in 2002, followed by a two-year postdoc at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (Canada), studying Burgess Shale arthropods. Diego worked at the Spanish Research Council as a postdoctoral researcher (2005–2012) and is now an ARC Future Fellow at the University of Adelaide and an Honorary Research Associate at the South Australian Museum working on Cambrian Emu Bay Shale fossils and the Ediacara Biota. - See more at: http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/about/staff/dr-diego-c-garcia-bellido#sthash.KKTRpl7n.dpuf