Our world has many superheroes.
But they have the worst of all superpowers: invisibility.
For example, the catadores, workers who collect recyclable materials for a living.
Catadores emerged from social inequality, unemployment, and the abundance of solid waste from the deficiency of the waste collection system.
Catadores provide a heavy, honest and essential work that benefits the entire population.
But they are not acknowledged for it.
Here in Brazil, they collect 90 percent of all the waste that's actually recycled.
Most of the catadores work independently, picking waste from the streets and selling to junk yards at very low prices.
They may collect over 300 kilos in their bags, shopping carts, bicycles and carroças.
Carroças are carts built from wood or metal and found in several streets in Brazil, much like graffiti and street art.
And this is how I first met these marginalized superheroes.
I am a graffiti artist and activist and my art is social, environmental and political in nature.
In 2007, I took my work beyond walls and onto the carroças, as a new urban support for my message.
But at this time, giving voice to the catadores.
By adding art and humor to the cause, it became more appealing, which helped call attention to the catadores and improve their self-esteem.
And also, they are famous now on the streets, on mass media and social.
So, the thing is, I plunged into this universe and have not stopped working since.
I have painted over 200 carroças in many cities and have been invited to do exhibitions and trips worldwide.
And then I realized that catadores, in their invisibility, are not exclusive to Brazil.
I met them in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, South Africa, Turkey and even in developed countries such as the United States and Japan.
And this was when I realized that I needed to have more people join the cause because it's a big challenge.
And then, I created a collaborative movement called Pimp My Carroça -- (Laughter) -- which is a large crowdfunded event.
Thank you.
(Applause).
So Pimp My Carroça is a large crowdfunded event to help catadores and their carroças.
Catadores are assisted by well-being professionals and healthcare, like physicians, dentists, podiatrists, hair stylists, massage therapists and much more.
But also, they also receive safety shirts, gloves, raincoats and eyeglasses to see in high-definition the city, while their carroças are renovated by our incredible volunteers.
And then they receive safety items, too: reflective tapes, horns and mirrors.
Then, finally, painted by a street artist and become part of part of this huge, amazing mobile art exhibition.
Pimp My Carroça took to the streets of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba.
But to meet the demand in other cities, including outside of Brazil, we have created Pimpx, which is inspired by TEDx, and it's a simplified, do-it-yourself, crowdfunded edition of Pimp My Carroça.
So now everybody can join.
In two years, over 170 catadores, 800 volunteers and 200 street artists and more than 1,000 donors have been involved in the Pimp My Carroça movement, whose actions have even been used in teaching recycling at a local school.
So catadores are leaving invisibility behind and becoming increasingly respected and valued.
Because of their pimped carroças, they are able to fight back to prejudice, increase their income and their interaction with society.
So now, I'd like to challenge you to start looking at and acknowledging the catadores and other invisible superheroes from your city.
Try to see the world as one, without boundaries or frontiers.
Believe it or not, there are over 20 million catadores worldwide.
So next time you see one, recognize them as a vital part of our society.
Muito obrigado, thank you.
(Applause).
In case there's any confusion, that's me up there.
(Laughter) Enjoying the spotlight or commanding attention does not come naturally to me.
Blending into the background, analyzing and observing a situation, is where I find the most comfort, or, as I'll get to later on in this talk, when I'm on the road by myself.
Unless this lady is with me.
Yes, I'm referring to my camera as a lady.
(Laughter) She is my safety blanket, and I've spent more time with my camera than with most people in my life.
I'm an artist, I am a photographer, I'm a self-described nomadic creator.
It's one of those creative professions that when you tell people, they say, "Wow, I wish I could do that!"
Or, "What do you really do for work?"
(Laughter) Or my personal favorite, "Did you go to school for this?"
(Laughter) And, as with most things that we don't have personal experience with, we make our own assumptions and judgments based off of the only tangible things that we can grab from.
So, when you say "photographer," people often think "weddings," or "high school portraits," or the ridiculous way photographers are depicted in TV and movies.
And I am going to show you what I do and why I do it.
Now, when people first meet me or hear about me, this is what they're interested in.
Now, I could stand here and I can talk about how I've brushed shoulders with world leaders, and my surreal five minutes that I spent with President Obama.
Or I could talk about photographing Hillary Clinton a week before the election, after a rally in North Carolina.
Or the tremendous emotional weight for myself photographing Darren Wilson a year after the events in Ferguson, Missouri, for the New Yorker, to then, only a year later, photograph Bryan Stevenson, and he is an advocate and a lawyer based out of Mobile, Alabama, who fights for the under-represented, and we had a conversation about race that still stays with me today.
Or just what's the easiest and what most people can relate to: celebrity.
So, I could talk about Agelina Jolie, or I could talk about the TV icon that's Sarah Jessica Parker, or I can just talk about the numerous actors and musicians and notable people that I've interacted with over the last decade.
And I love my job and I love my work, but that's not what I'm here to talk to you about.
I'm going to talk about when I'm in my 2003 Buick, driving cross-country for weeks at a time, and how that's when I'm feeling the most fulfilled.
But first, I need to give a little backstory on me and why I do what I do.
So, think of it like in an abridged episode of "This American Life," just not that long.
(Laughter) So, I am a white, cis, queer man from a working-class family in New York, and with all things being relative, I didn't grow up with the utmost privilege, and it wasn't uniquely terrible either.
My parents, however, were too involved with their own demons for me to ever truly feel seen or heard.
And it wasn't necessarily their fault.
It was merely just a casualty of their reality.
Depression, addiction, anger, resentment overwhelmed both of them.
When I was seven, my mother was diagnosed with cancer.
It was the first of a decade-long battle that she ended up surviving from.
It was also the same time that she showed me how to make her a screwdriver.
When I was ten, I knew that I was queer, or that I at least liked boys, and by 13, my mother outed me.
It was an experience that let me feeling like my identity was stripped from me.
By 14, my dad had a DUI or two, I don't really remember.
By 16, he moved out of the house, and by 18, I didn't really speak to either of them.
So, my world up until this point made me feel that my experiences and my feelings would never actually compare to that of my parents.
And intellectually, I knew better, but I didn't actually know what would make me feel differently.
All I knew was that I didn't want anyone that came into my life to ever feel like they were not seen.
And then, I picked up a camera.
For me, photography was always really interesting because of the immediacy and collaborative nature of it.
It would be a way for me to meet people that were outside of the safe mental bubble that I had created for myself.
And so, I started photographing, and as I started interacting with other people, I realized that the interaction itself was actually more interesting to me than the photograph.
When I started realizing that, and I thought about my dad, who had recently got sober, I wanted him to feel seen.
So, at this point, he and I were still very estranged, and I was in graduate school and my professor, Collier Schorr, said something to me that still echoes in my head pretty much every day: my work was "too easy," and just because I could make something that "looked good" did not mean that it was interesting.
And so, I needed to challenge myself and my craft.
Ironically enough, after years of spending my time making myself feel comfortable, I needed to be uncomfortable again.
So, I asked my dad if he would be willing to sit for a portrait.
This was the first one that I took of him.
Then, I took a break because I needed to do a lot of soul-searching to figure out what it was that I actually wanted to do with him.
And so, I continued to photograph him and we started to have a dialogue, but it was through photographs.
And I even actually started taking portraits of myself with him because I wanted to, at first, just have a close physical proximity to him.
And the idea of this made me realize I needed full immersion, I needed no easy escape plan.
And so, I asked him, kind of not even thinking it would happen, if he would go on the road trip that we never took when I was a kid, and surprisingly, he said, "Yeah, sure, let's do it."
And so, he and I hit the road, and as this happened, we started creating this fantasy relationship that never actually existed.
(Laughter) But the experience of making these photographs created a bond between the two of us that we were incapable of doing otherwise.
It was my a-ha moment for photography.
I was using my camera as a therapist.
It became this third party that allowed the two of us to communicate with each other even when we weren't actually talking.
We finally actually saw each other.
So, fast-forward about a decade later, and I am no longer working with my dad, but I am photographing strangers spontaneously that I meet on the road.
Now, about a month before the election, I was having tremendous anxiety and feeling very stagnant about my work in general.
I began seeing friends withdraw and the overall feeling of frustration on social media.
And to be quite honest, I just wanted to escape.
And so, I hit the road, and I didn't have any destinations in mind.
I just knew I wanted to drive cross-country and I wanted to escape.
And then, about a day into being on the road, I realized I needed to be doing something while I was on the road, because being just with yourself can lead to a lot, a lot of soul-searching.
So, once I realized I wanted to be doing something, I thought back to the time with my dad and how pivotal and also very cathartic it was for me, for my craft and also my mental health.
And so, I wanted to do that with strangers, and I went on Instagram, I went on Facebook, I downloaded all of the dating and hook-up apps, and I started messaging everyone that I could within every town that I stopped in.
Now, when a stranger approaches you online, it leads to a little hesitation.
And I say "stranger" and I just want to let you know I'm utilizing a community that is already comfortable for me, and that's of gay or queer-identifying men.
And so, I would send messages with a brief little description of what I was doing.
I wanted to come and meet you, I wanted to come to your home, we could meet in public, and I wanted to take your portrait - I got the majority of [them] being noes, and a lot of variations of, "That's creepy" or - (Laughter) "I don't really photograph well."
But there was something that did come up pretty often, and it was, "Why me?"
And it was that other a-ha moment for me.
There didn't need to be a "why me."
I wanted everyone that I interacted with to not only feel special, but to also feel like their stories could be heard.
So, this body of work, it's called "The Day of The Lone Wolf," and it's from a book called "The Secret [Language] of Birthdays," and it happens to be the day that I was born on.
Now, I casually mentioned my mother earlier, and it was by no accident.
Her and I are still estranged, but I wanted to take this moment to thank her.
When I was younger, she read to me from The Secret Language of Birthdays, and she used the personality traits that were depicted for The Day of The Lone Wolf, both to criticize and also occasionally appraise me, such as emotionally "sensitive," and "impulsive," and "contradictory."
Now in my mid 30's I've reclaimed my identity as a queer man and I've also reclaimed The Day of The Lone Wolf, and I'm creating in honor of it.
So, since that first road trip, I've gotten cross-country two more times, and the only thing that you actually know about these photographs is the common denominator is me.
Now, everyone has a story, you've been listening to mine - And so, while you may not know the particulars of their struggles or of their achievements or even of their privilege, there is one thing that you do know: they allowed themselves to be vulnerable with a stranger, and that's what I've done with you today.
Thank you.
(Applause)