Ideas change everything

An art made of trust, vulnerability and connection

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Marina Abramović |

TED2015

• March 2015

Marina Abramović's art pushes the boundary between audience and artist in pursuit of heightened consciousness and personal change. In her groundbreaking 2010 work, "The Artist Is Present," she simply sat in a chair facing her audience, for eight hours a day ... with powerfully moving results. Her boldest work may still be yet to come -- it's taking the form of a sprawling art institute devoted to experimentation and simple acts done with mindful attention. "Nothing happens if you always do things the same way," she says. "My method is to do things I'm afraid of, the things I don't know, to go to territory that nobody's ever been."

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Marina Abramović's art pushes the boundary between audience and artist in pursuit of heightened consciousness and personal change. In her groundbreaking 2010 work, "The Artist Is Present," she simply sat in a chair facing her audience, for eight hours a day ... with powerfully moving results. Her boldest work may still be yet to come -- it's taking the form of a sprawling art institute devoted to experimentation and simple acts done with mindful attention. "Nothing happens if you always do things the same way," she says. "My method is to do things I'm afraid of, the things I don't know, to go to territory that nobody's ever been."

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This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

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About the speaker

Marina Abramović

Performance artist

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In her performances she’s been cut, burned, and nearly shot -- but Marina Abramović's boldest work yet is a gargantuan institute dedicated to transformation through art.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

Read our curation guidelines.