Unfinished Portraits Of Powerful Ideas: Kenneth Brecher
Video Description
Kenneth Brecher, executive director of the Sundance Institute, speaks at the 2009 Skoll World Forum’s opening plenary. In his talk, “Unfinished Portraits of Powerful Ideas,” he talks about the significance of poetry and tells a powerful story about Stalin asking a woman to write a poem praising him in exchange for releasing her son.
Speakers
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President, Library Foundation of Los Angeles
Ken Brecher is the President of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. He was formerly the Executive Director of the Sundance Institute. He was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University and is an honors graduate of Cornell.
An anthropologist by training, Mr. Brecher has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, including a Ford Foundation Fellowship for his study of Amazonian tribesmen in Brazil. He is the author of Too Sad to Sing, A Memoir with Postcards and edited the classic work, Xingu: The Indians and Their Myths.
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Chair of The Elders, The Elders
Mary Robinson was elected Irish President in 1990 and served for seven years as a principled and transformative leader who fought for equality and women’s rights throughout her time in office. A firm believer in dialogue and reconciliation, she broke taboos by being the first Irish head of state to make official visits to Britain, as well as regularly visiting Northern Ireland. As UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002), Mary Robinson became renowned as an outspoken voice dedicated to investigating and exposing human rights abuses across the world.
Mary Robinson has been a member of The Elders since the group was founded in 2007 and was appointed Chair of The Elders in November 2018. She has travelled to the Middle East several times with The Elders to encourage peace efforts and support Israelis and Palestinans working for peaceful coexistence; visited the Korean Peninsula to help ease tensions between North and South Korea and learn more about North Korea’s chronic food crisis; joined an Elders' delegation to Côte d'Ivoire to emphasise the importance of reconciliation following widespread civil conflict.
Mary Robinson also founded The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. Its work from 2010-2019 meant climate justice went from being effectively a taboo topic to being an approach to climate decision-making and action that is people-centered, rights-informed and fair.
