Chris Abani tells stories of people: People standing up to soldiers. People being compassionate. People being human and reclaiming their humanity. It's "ubuntu," he says: the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.

Yesterday I went to a writing masterclass with Chris Abani at the Brisbane Writer's Festival. I was drawn to it via this TED video, which was screened last week at the MAP Magazine Cafe Series at the Brisbane Powerhouse. In teaching a conceptual approach to how to create art, Chris Abani reframed the debate about the common practice of modeling our work on that of others. He said that writers need to collect things "like magpies", and gave us permission to steal. “There is no such thing as influence, there is only the recognition that somebody sees the world the same way you do.” In other words, as in this TED video, we find in others a mirror of our own humanity. more about "Chris Abani muses on humanity | Video...", posted with vodpod

Yesterday I went to a writing masterclass with Chris Abani at the Brisbane Writer's Festival. I was drawn to it via this video, which was screened last week at the MAP Magazine Cafe Series at the Brisbane Powerhouse.

In teaching a conceptual approach to how to create art, he said some awesome things. He allayed our concerns about modeling our work on that of others: “There is no such thing as influence, there is only recognition that somebody sees the world the same way you do.”

In other words, as in this video, we find a mirror of our own humanity.