Equals | Mário D'Andrea | TEDxSãoPauloSalon

Are really so different? Mário D'Andrea talks about the exposition called "Exposição Iguais."

Mário D'Andrea is an Advertising Agent for important international brands and an Advertising Executive at multinational agencies, as well as the President and CCO at Dentsu Brasil, the biggest advertising agency in Asia.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

"A camera does not judge,
it simply photographs."

With this simple thought

my staff and I, at Dentsu Brasil,
the agency I own,

set up an exposition project
called "Exposição Iguais."

It only has one objective:

to celebrate the differences among people.

For this, we invited
20 totally different Brazilians,

20 people who'd never met
or seen each other,

of different colors,
from different ethnic groups,

creeds, and social classes.

We took them to a photographic studio

and we placed only one thing
between them: a photo camera.

Then, we asked them,

"Talk, get to know each other,
spend some hours together

and take pictures
of one another, just that."

We spent some days doing this.

A black woman, an albino woman.

A Jewish man, a Muslim woman.

A grandmother, and a punk stylist.

In short, several different types.

I confess that it was
a spectacular experience,

not only for them, but also for us,

and this experience,
which was almost a social experiment,

brought forth a series
of wonderful photos,

some can be seen here,

but more important
than the pictures themselves

were the 20 testimonies
that we were able to gather from them,

from these 20 Brazilians.

A small example of how the differences
among people should be valued

for the development of a society.

The TEDx staff asked me,

"Where did this idea come from?"

I'll have to go back in time

and tell you a little bit
of my personal history.

My parents are Italian.

Actually, I'm the first Brazilian
in the D'Andrea family.

My parents were engaged when they arrived
in Brazil, where they got married,

and I was obviously born
and raised in Mooca, São Paulo.

My haircut hasn't changed a bit, has it?

(Laughter)

The fact that I was born in this place
brought me some great opportunities.

They may seem simple,
but they were really great.

My childhood was very simple, of course.

I used to live in a street that was full
of workers' small houses.

We always lived close to each other,

just like every Italian
who goes to live in another country.

The official language at home was Italian,

the official food was also Italian -
no problem whatsoever with that.

But, when I was around four or five,

I started to play with the kids
who lived in other parts of the street.

Then I made my first great discovery.

One day I observed,
"Wow, not everybody is Italian!"

For me, that was way cool

because I started to learn some games
which were different from the ones I knew,

to eat different things...

One of the things I most liked
when I was a kid

was to go with my dad
to Bom Retiro, here in São Paulo.

It just meant work to my dad -
he used to visit his clients.

To me, it was pure fun.

I'd spend hours listening
to my dad chatting to his clients,

mainly the jokes between them.

Of course, all his clients were Jewish.

I'd spend hours listening,
and it's funny that, at the time,

there was a Lebanese family
living next to my house

and, through them, I learned
to love Arabian food.

As a matter of fact,
I'm crazy about it to this day.

I confess there was indeed a division
between the kids in my neighborhood,

but it was about one thing only:
those who were good or bad at soccer.

I'd always been bad at it,
but, stubbornly,

after learning so much with the other boys

I started to play reasonably well,

and began to participate in every
imaginable championship.

We'd go to places I had never been to
just to play some soccer.

Marquinhos was one of the guys
who most taught me about this sport.

He was older than me.

I was around 16, and he was 21, 22

and back then he gave me
all the tips I know to this day.

Even now I remember what he taught me

to play soccer decently.

Once, Marquinhos went
to the beach with his family

to spend the weekend,

and there at that beach, he drowned.

That was a shock for me.

I hadn't had contact
with death until then,

but the second shock
came at Marquinhos's funeral

because when I got there

I noticed I was one of the few
white people at his funeral.

He was biracial,
the son of a black father.

There, I began to notice
that this coexistence wasn't so simple.

Life kept teaching me more.

I got married at 23, had my first kid
at 24, the second at 29.

I got divorced, married again

and, at 40, I thought I knew everything.

But then I had a daughter.

For someone who had spent his life
with brothers, nephews, male cousins

and sons all my life,

in my early 40s
I had this girl before me,

and then I had to learn everything again.

I relearned how to dialog, to convince

and especially, just between us,
how to be convinced.

(Laughter)

I confess there were some moments
in the relationship with my daughter

I had the distinct feeling
of discovering parts of my brain

I didn't even know were there.

(Laughter)

When my daughter arrived,
I began to see some things

that brought some other kind of feeling.

They were basically two:
first fear, then anger.

I remember well when I felt
that fear for the first time.

It was when I saw this broadcast on TV

and which was all over
the media at the time.

Several years ago, a young man
walking down Paulista Avenue

was assaulted by a group of guys

who hit him in the face
with a fluorescent light bulb,

just because he was gay.

When I saw that video

I confess I was surprised
and instantly thought,

"How come?

Why does someone attack
another person like that

just because they're different?

What kind of morbid pleasure
leads someone to do such a thing?"

My mind wouldn't stop racing.

I thought, "In daylight
on Paulista Avenue?

My kids walk down that place every day.

What if it was some other kind
of prejudice, say, against bald people?"

I'm not sure you've noticed
but I haven't got that much hair.

"I'd be walking down Paulista Avenue
on that same day, at the same time,

and I'd probably
be assaulted by those guys

with a fluorescent light bulb to my face.

That's it. That's what we're left with."

And that started to make me angry,

mainly because every day

the media started to show
more and more examples,

more and more cases of intolerance,

of stupid prejudice,
of gratuitous violence,

of limitless sexism.

I felt so much anger when I saw that,

but then I came to my senses and thought,

"Anger is exactly the tool used
by these biased people.

It won't solve anything.

So I think it's time we did something

to guide the media in a different way,

to show some more encouraging news,

at least to fight the minority
that causes all this damage."

And then I had the idea
of gathering my staff

to create something that would simulate,
at least for a few hours,

the experience I'd had when I was a boy.

More than photos,

they're beautiful...

Remember, taken by 20 Brazilians...

There was no professional photographer,
no Photoshop, no tricks.

Besides the photos
the Brazilians took of each other,

this experiment, this exposition
gave us the chance

to collect 20 truly
remarkable testimonies.

Several of them contained painful stories,

but several others had stories of hope

and of good examples
of coexisting with differences.

For example, Leonor,
the friendliest grandmother,

who said in her testimony,

"Sonny, we're all born the same way
and we'll all die the same way.

People sometimes forget this."

Or the punk stylist
who did the photoshoot with her

- by the way, one of the most
fun sessions of all -

who said, "The subway may be crowded.

If there's an empty seat next to me,
nobody will sit there."

Divina Raio-Laser,

the exuberant and wonderful name
of the drag queen

who asks just for one thing
in her testimony,

"I exist. I am here. Respect me."

The one who did the photoshoot with her
was a pacific 58-year-old family man

whose name is Nino, a little Italian man.

He said, "If there were only
one type of human being,

we'd probably be extinct by now."

Isabela, who's a ballerina,
said something I found impressive,

"People mistake attitude
for personal characteristics.

Characteristics do not offend
or hurt anybody;

but attitudes do."

No doubt, from the 20 testimonies
that we collected,

the one that most impressed
not only me but the whole staff

was given by a Syrian woman
called Rasha, who's a Muslim

who fled from the war in her country

and has been in Brazil
for less than two years.

She speaks reasonable Portuguese

and said during her testimony,
"I had only seen Jewish people on TV."

Then I said, "Did I get that right?
Let me check that out.

You're saying that, until day,

you had never seen
a Jewish person in front of you?"

"Here with us was your first time,
in this photographic studio?"

She said, "Yes, today was the first time."

I couldn't resist asking her,
"How was that feeling?"

She looked at me

with a beautiful smile
and said, "Normal, right?

He has different clothes
and another religion

but he's a person like me."

I said, "You don't need to say any more.
That's all I need to hear from you."

This exposition was
in São Paulo for two weeks.

It had great media coverage,
which was exactly what we wanted,

and it's going round
some cities in our country.

Recently, it was in Curitiba
for three weeks.

Something happened in Curitiba
that touched me very personally.

Some schools took their students
to see the exposition,

and not only did they show it to them

but they also made the students
watch all the testimonies,

and later asked them to discuss
and do some related work in class

about the importance of diversity
in the construction of a society.

I confess that when I saw these photos,

I couldn't help remembering
a little Italian boy, long ago,

who lived and learned with kids
who were totally different from him.

This exposition has brought me
one great certainty:

the more we coexist with different people

the more we look similar as human beings.

Thank you very much.

(Applause) (Cheering)