WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.000 I was speaking to a group of about 300 kids, 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:05.000 ages six to eight, at a children's museum, 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:09.000 and I brought with me a bag full of legs, 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:11.000 similar to the kinds of things you see up here, 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:13.000 and had them laid out on a table for the kids. 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:17.000 And, from my experience, you know, kids are naturally curious 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:19.000 about what they don't know, or don't understand, 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:21.000 or is foreign to them. 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:23.000 They only learn to be frightened of those differences 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:26.000 when an adult influences them to behave that way, 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.000 and maybe censors that natural curiosity, 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:32.000 or you know, reins in the question-asking 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:34.000 in the hopes of them being polite little kids. 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:38.000 So I just pictured a first grade teacher out in the lobby 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:41.000 with these unruly kids, saying, "Now, whatever you do, 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:43.000 don't stare at her legs." NOTE Paragraph 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:45.000 But, of course, that's the point. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:48.000 That's why I was there, I wanted to invite them to look and explore. 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:52.000 So I made a deal with the adults 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:55.000 that the kids could come in without any adults for two minutes 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:57.000 on their own. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:01.000 The doors open, the kids descend on this table of legs, 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:04.000 and they are poking and prodding, and they're wiggling toes, 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:06.000 and they're trying to put their full weight on the sprinting leg 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:08.000 to see what happens with that. 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:10.000 And I said, "Kids, really quickly -- 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:14.000 I woke up this morning, I decided I wanted to be able to jump over a house -- 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:16.000 nothing too big, two or three stories -- 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:21.000 but, if you could think of any animal, any superhero, any cartoon character, 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:23.000 anything you can dream up right now, 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:25.000 what kind of legs would you build me?" NOTE Paragraph 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:28.000 And immediately a voice shouted, "Kangaroo!" 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:30.000 "No, no, no! Should be a frog!" 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:32.000 "No. It should be Go Go Gadget!" 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:34.000 "No, no, no! It should be the Incredibles." 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:37.000 And other things that I don't -- aren't familiar with. 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:39.000 And then, one eight-year-old said, 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:43.000 "Hey, why wouldn't you want to fly too?" 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:47.000 And the whole room, including me, was like, "Yeah." 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:49.000 (Laughter) 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:52.000 And just like that, I went from being a woman 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:56.000 that these kids would have been trained to see as "disabled" 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:01.000 to somebody that had potential that their bodies didn't have yet. 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:03.000 Somebody that might even be super-abled. 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:05.000 Interesting. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:10.000 So some of you actually saw me at TED, 11 years ago. 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:14.000 And there's been a lot of talk about how life-changing this conference is 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:18.000 for both speakers and attendees, and I am no exception. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:24.000 TED literally was the launch pad to the next decade of my life's exploration. 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:29.000 At the time, the legs I presented were groundbreaking in prosthetics. 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:31.000 I had woven carbon fiber sprinting legs 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:33.000 modeled after the hind leg of a cheetah, 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:35.000 which you may have seen on stage yesterday. 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:41.000 And also these very life-like, intrinsically painted silicone legs. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:45.000 So at the time, it was my opportunity to put a call out 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:49.000 to innovators outside the traditional medical prosthetic community 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:53.000 to come bring their talent to the science and to the art 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:55.000 of building legs. 00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:00.000 So that we can stop compartmentalizing form, function and aesthetic, 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:02.000 and assigning them different values. 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:06.000 Well, lucky for me, a lot of people answered that call. 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:11.000 And the journey started, funny enough, with a TED conference attendee -- 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:14.000 Chee Pearlman, who hopefully is in the audience somewhere today. 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:17.000 She was the editor then of a magazine called ID, 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:20.000 and she gave me a cover story. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:23.000 This started an incredible journey. 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:25.000 Curious encounters were happening to me at the time; 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:28.000 I'd been accepting numerous invitations to speak 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:31.000 on the design of the cheetah legs around the world. 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:34.000 And people would come up to me after the conference, after my talk, 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:36.000 men and women. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:38.000 And the conversation would go something like this, 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:42.000 "You know Aimee, you're very attractive. 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:44.000 You don't look disabled." 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:45.000 (Laughter) 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:47.000 I thought, "Well, that's amazing, 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:49.000 because I don't feel disabled." 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:54.000 And it really opened my eyes to this conversation 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:56.000 that could be explored, about beauty. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:59.000 What does a beautiful woman have to look like? 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:01.000 What is a sexy body? 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:03.000 And interestingly, from an identity standpoint, 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:06.000 what does it mean to have a disability? 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:09.000 I mean, people -- Pamela Anderson has more prosthetic in her body than I do. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:11.000 Nobody calls her disabled. 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:16.000 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:21.000 So this magazine, through the hands of graphic designer Peter Saville, 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:26.000 went to fashion designer Alexander McQueen, and photographer Nick Knight, 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:28.000 who were also interested in exploring that conversation. 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:31.000 So, three months after TED I found myself on a plane 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:36.000 to London, doing my first fashion shoot, 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:37.000 which resulted in this cover -- 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:40.000 "Fashion-able"? 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:44.000 Three months after that, I did my first runway show for Alexander McQueen 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:49.000 on a pair of hand-carved wooden legs made from solid ash. 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:52.000 Nobody knew -- everyone thought they were wooden boots. 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.000 Actually, I have them on stage with me: 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:59.000 grapevines, magnolias -- truly stunning. 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:03.000 Poetry matters. 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:08.000 Poetry is what elevates the banal and neglected object 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:10.000 to a realm of art. 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:16.000 It can transform the thing that might have made people fearful 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:18.000 into something that invites them to look, 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.000 and look a little longer, 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:23.000 and maybe even understand. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:27.000 I learned this firsthand with my next adventure. 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:31.000 The artist Matthew Barney, in his film opus called the "The Cremaster Cycle." 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:34.000 This is where it really hit home for me -- 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:36.000 that my legs could be wearable sculpture. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:43.000 And even at this point, I started to move away from the need to replicate human-ness 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:45.000 as the only aesthetic ideal. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:49.000 So we made what people lovingly referred to as glass legs 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:53.000 even though they're actually optically clear polyurethane, 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:55.000 a.k.a. bowling ball material. 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:56.000 Heavy! 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:58.000 Then we made these legs that are cast in soil 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:02.000 with a potato root system growing in them, and beetroots out the top, 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:04.000 and a very lovely brass toe. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:06.000 That's a good close-up of that one. 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:08.000 Then another character was a half-woman, half-cheetah -- 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:10.000 a little homage to my life as an athlete. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.000 14 hours of prosthetic make-up 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:17.000 to get into a creature that had articulated paws, 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:21.000 claws and a tail that whipped around, 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:23.000 like a gecko. 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:24.000 (Laughter) 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:29.000 And then another pair of legs we collaborated on were these -- 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:31.000 look like jellyfish legs, 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:33.000 also polyurethane. 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:36.000 And the only purpose that these legs can serve, 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:39.000 outside the context of the film, 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:42.000 is to provoke the senses and ignite the imagination. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:45.000 So whimsy matters. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:51.000 Today, I have over a dozen pair of prosthetic legs 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:53.000 that various people have made for me, 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:57.000 and with them I have different negotiations of the terrain under my feet, 00:06:57.000 --> 00:06:59.000 and I can change my height -- 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:01.000 I have a variable of five different heights. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:03.000 (Laughter) 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:05.000 Today, I'm 6'1". 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:08.000 And I had these legs made a little over a year ago 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:10.000 at Dorset Orthopedic in England 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:12.000 and when I brought them home to Manhattan, 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:14.000 my first night out on the town, I went to a very fancy party. 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:17.000 And a girl was there who has known me for years 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:19.000 at my normal 5'8". 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:21.000 Her mouth dropped open when she saw me, 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:24.000 and she went, "But you're so tall!" 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:26.000 And I said, "I know. Isn't it fun?" 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:28.000 I mean, it's a little bit like wearing stilts on stilts, 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:31.000 but I have an entirely new relationship to door jams 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:33.000 that I never expected I would ever have. 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:36.000 And I was having fun with it. 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.000 And she looked at me, 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:40.000 and she said, "But, Aimee, that's not fair." 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:43.000 (Laughter) 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:45.000 (Applause) 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.000 And the incredible thing was she really meant it. 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:51.000 It's not fair that you can change your height, 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:53.000 as you want it. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:55.000 And that's when I knew -- 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:58.000 that's when I knew that the conversation with society 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:00.000 has changed profoundly 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:02.000 in this last decade. 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:07.000 It is no longer a conversation about overcoming deficiency. 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:09.000 It's a conversation about augmentation. 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:13.000 It's a conversation about potential. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:18.000 A prosthetic limb doesn't represent the need to replace loss anymore. 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:21.000 It can stand as a symbol that the wearer 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:24.000 has the power to create whatever it is that they want to create 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:26.000 in that space. 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:29.000 So people that society once considered to be disabled 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:34.000 can now become the architects of their own identities 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:36.000 and indeed continue to change those identities 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:38.000 by designing their bodies 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.000 from a place of empowerment. 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:46.000 And what is exciting to me so much right now 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:50.000 is that by combining cutting-edge technology -- 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:52.000 robotics, bionics -- 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.000 with the age-old poetry, 00:08:54.000 --> 00:09:00.000 we are moving closer to understanding our collective humanity. 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:05.000 I think that if we want to discover the full potential 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:07.000 in our humanity, 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:11.000 we need to celebrate those heartbreaking strengths 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:14.000 and those glorious disabilities that we all have. 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:17.000 I think of Shakespeare's Shylock: 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:21.000 "If you prick us, do we not bleed, 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:24.000 and if you tickle us, do we not laugh?" 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:27.000 It is our humanity, 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:29.000 and all the potential within it, 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:32.000 that makes us beautiful. 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:33.000 Thank you. 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:40.000 (Applause)