Theme: DECONSTRUCT

As the first TEDx event on our college campus, TEDxLewis&ClarkCollege hopes to introduce our community to the joy and inspiration that TED stands for. The voices and ideas of those in our community matter so much to us; we all deserve to speak our truth and join the conversation.
The "deconstruct" theme is an encouragement. It's a gentle pull into the vulnerable and often ignored parts of our stories. It says, look deeply at this part of you, and ask yourself, "How can I break this apart to understand it more?" The result of this is incredible. When we look at our stories from this perspective, we see things differently; we interact with it differently. And we invite others to do the same. Ultimately, we realize that the stories we decontruct must be reconstructed. This is inevitable if we are to be responsible with these "ideas worth spreading".

Fir Acres Theatre
0615 SW Palatine Hill Road
Portland, Oregon, 97219
United States

Amaris Bouchard

Student

What do you do when you are caught in the web of a power dynamic? How do stories build this web, and how can we take better care with the stories we choose to share? In this personal reflection on her study abroad experience in Tanzania, Amaris Bouchard unravels what power can look like and our responsibility to it.

David Eby

Cello Instructor

Why do we “resonate” with a song or idea? David Eby uses a cello, piano strings, and the voices of the audience to demonstrate how it all works. Weaving music and meditation, he creates the space to experience genuine human resonance—the true secret to sharing inspiration and unleashing your potential.

Duncan Neilson

Composer & Educator

Searching for music and stories with roots deep enough to address the climate crisis, composer Duncan Neilson found something deeper than he imagined— a reawakening of wonder. He describes a transformative journey sparked by a crossroads in his musical life upon learning the depth of our culture’s current destructive story. He interweaves the strange voices of biomusic, electronica, and a new look at the familiar monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, motivating us to use our own particular passion toward greater purpose and responsibility.

Hannah Harrington

French Immersion Teaching Assistant

Talking about virginity is taboo, and our perceptions and feelings surrounding it seem to be dictated by everyone else - society, religion, family, friends - other than our own voices. In her vulnerable talk, Hannah Harrington aims to deconstruct the shame, fear and personal silence surrounding virginity. She boldly encourages us to believe that through the sea of expectations, we can own our virginity stories too.

Nicolette Sauramba

Data Analyst & Humanitarian

In an insightful and intimate account of her search for happiness, Nicolette Sauramba describes how her move to the Western world resulted in the realization that the Western pursuit of happiness should not be a life goal. Sauramba uses light-hearted anecdotes from her travels around the world to draw attention to why the Western pursuit of happiness fails to grant us the very outcomes it promises. Finally, she urges us to rethink our reality to avoid the misleading nature of this pursuit.

Tom Stratton

Student

Tom Stratton shares how Autism and Prosopagnosia (face blindness) made him a social outcast growing up, but how he ultimately used his unique worldview to successfully build strong friendships. With support from family, aides and other advisors, he learned he could use certain hallmarks of Autism, such as insightful pattern recognition, intense passions, detail-mindedness, and a strong memory, to flip his Autism from a weakness into a strength. Stratton inspires us to be brave and search ourselves to recognize our own worldview and weaknesses that we are able to reinvent into our own personal strengths.