How to recover from activism burnout

Yana Buhrer Tavanier speaks at TED Residency Talks

In the summer of 2017,

a woman was murdered
by her partner in Sofia.

The woman, let's call her "V,"

was beaten for over 50 minutes

before she died.

The morning after,

her neighbors told the press
that they heard her screams,

but they didn't intervene.

You see, in Bulgaria
and many other societies,

domestic violence is typically seen
as a private matter.

Neighbors, however, are quick to react
to any other kind of noise.

We wanted to expose and affect
the absurdity of this.

So we designed an experiment.

We rented the apartment
just below V's for one night.

And at 10pm,

Maksim, the artist in our group,

sat on the drum set
we had assembled in the living room

and started beating it.

Ten seconds.

Thirty seconds.

Fifty seconds.

A minute.

A light came on in the hallway.

One minute and 20 seconds.

A man was standing at the door,
hesitant to press the bell.

One minute and 52 seconds.

The doorbell rang,

a ring that could have saved a life.

"Beat." is our project exploring
the ominous silence

surrounding domestic violence.

We filmed the experiment,
and it became instantly viral.

Our campaign amplified
the voices of survivors

who shared similar stories online.

It equipped neighbors
with specific advice,

and many committed to taking action.

In a country where every other week,

the ground quietly embraces
the body of a woman

murdered by a partner or a relative,

we were loud,

and we were heard.

I am an activist,

passionate about human rights innovation.

I lead a global organization
for socially engaged creative solutions.

In my work, I think about
how to make people care and act.

I am here to tell you
that creative actions can save the world,

creative actions and play.

I know it is weird to talk about play
and human rights in the same sentence,

but here is why it's important.

More and more, we fear
that we can't win this.

Campaigns feel dull,

messages drown,

people break.

Numerous studies, including a recent one
published by Columbia University,

show that burnout and depression
are widespread amongst activists.

Years ago, I myself was burned out.

In a world of endless ways forward,
I felt at my final stop.

So what melts fear or dullness or gloom?

Play.

From this very stage, psychiatrist
and play researcher Dr. Stuart Brown

said that nothing
lights up the brain like play,

and that the opposite of play is not work,

it's depression.

So to pull out of my own burnout,

I decided to turn my activism
into what I call today "play-tivism."

(Laughter)

When we play, others want to join.

Today, my playground
is filled with artists,

techies and scientists.

We fuse disciplines
in radical collaboration.

Together, we seek new ways
to empower activism.

Our outcomes are not meant to be playful,

but our process is.

To us, play is an act of resistance.

For example, "Beat.,"
the project I talked about earlier,

is a concept developed by a drummer
and a software engineer

who didn't know each other
two days before they pitched the idea.

"Beat." is the first winner
in our lab series

where we pair artists and technologists
to work on human rights issues.

Other winning concepts
include a pop-up bakery

that teaches about fake news through
beautiful but horrible-tasting cupcakes --

(Laughter)

or a board game that puts you
in the shoes of a dictator

so you get to really grasp the range
of tools and tactics of oppression.

We did our first lab
just to test the idea,

to see where it cracks
and if we can make it better.

Today, we are so in love with the format
that we put it all online

for anyone to implement.

I cannot overstate the value
of experimentation in activism.

We can only win
if we are not afraid to lose.

When we play, we learn.

A recent study published
by Stanford University

about the science
of what makes people care

reconfirms what we have
been hearing for years:

opinions are changed
not from more information

but through empathy and using experiences.

So learning from science and art,

we saw that we can talk about
global armed conflict through light bulbs,

or address racial inequality in the US

through postcards,

or tackle the lack of even
one single monument of a woman in Sofia

by flooding the city with them,

and, with all these works,

to trigger dialogue,
understanding and direct action.

Sometimes, when I talk about
taking risks and trying and failing

in the context of human rights,

I meet raised eyebrows,

eyebrows that say, "How irresponsible,"

or, "How insensitive."

People often mistake play for negligence.

It is not.

Play doesn't just grow our armies stronger
or spark better ideas.

In times of painful injustice,

play brings the levity we need
to be able to breathe.

When we play, we live.

I grew up in a time

when all play was forbidden.

My family's lives were crushed
by a communist dictatorship.

For my aunt, my grandfather, my father,

we always held two funerals:

one for their bodies,

but, years before that,

one for their dreams.

Some of my biggest dreams are nightmares.

I have a nightmare that one day
all the past will be forgotten

and new clothes will be dripping
the blood of past mistakes.

I have a nightmare

that one day the lighthouses
of our humanity will crumble,

corroded by acid waves of hate.

But way more than that,

I have hope.

In our fights for justice and freedom,

I hope that we play,

and that we see the joy
and beauty of us playing together.

That's how we win.

Thank you.

(Applause)