What does a war look like when you sit still long enough to draw it? Reportage artist and TED Fellow George Butler sketches the people that the news passes by: a 99-year-old survivor of the Holodomor famine in Ukraine, a man gathering books blasted into a rose garden, an architect whose home was hit by a Russian missile. Urging us to slow down in the age of immediate news, Butler shows how a drawing reveals what a headline can’t. (Recorded at TED2026 on April 16, 2026)
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@Kenzukirix
September 27, 2026 at 11:10 am
For me drawing is an attempt to understand what I feel about the world I live in.
@BuiNhatAnh-e4j
September 27, 2026 at 11:14 am
Chills down my spine… 🥺 News gives us the facts, but drawings like this capture the actual heartbreak. Huge respect to George Butler for showing the human side of war that often gets left behind. 🙏✨
@roycohen3054
September 27, 2026 at 11:24 am
Have you been to both sides of the same conflict and drawn people of both sides?
@follow-focus-your-dreams
September 27, 2026 at 11:38 am
الله أكبر
@isratibnatlizna293
September 27, 2026 at 11:39 am
Truly inspiring work! Thank you George Butler for sharing these stories through your art.
@josephmichel8194
September 27, 2026 at 3:21 pm
So very touching… Thank you for sharing!
@user-kq2tc5hy5g
September 27, 2026 at 5:33 pm
Obviously it doesn’t bother you to see people suffering, otherwise you wouldn’t continue doing it, let alone give a TED talk about it! that is at best indifference and apathy towards other people’s suffering.
@aiantenor9080
September 27, 2026 at 8:50 pm
Cherish human connections through drawing
@ziiipaawaimpact3618
September 27, 2026 at 11:21 pm
Global warming is a joke
@ziiipaawaimpact3618
September 27, 2026 at 11:22 pm
This is the first time since 1914 that the United States has not had a hurricane hit its Shores. They said we were all supposed to be dead by now.
@MarcoCurrin-qg1fy
September 27, 2026 at 11:46 pm
They knew the watch I gotta go digital— remember the— what’s the shadow one?— dial— dial soap— clean up your act— OK—-the hands— if you take the hands of a watching you extend them out to the moon see they knew you would figure this out because you’ve been to the moon
How fast is a second
And how far does it take to go by?
So then you’re stuck with
In the middle of forever, it depends where you are
If you’re on the face of the watch in the atomic structure, it would basically take forever
Because you’re in the center of creation
If you go out to where the moon is
Because you’re in the middle that means you can take the other half out to where the moon is
The hands on the same watch that that person’s holding
Would swing by your face almost the speed of light
One second
It depends on where you are in the middle of forever OBSERVING 🫶🏿🫄🏿🦕how long it takes NOW 2 exist 🫄🏿🪺🌌 🌍/2 🔵/1CE
And the distance in between the 2/
HAVES AND HAVES NOT 🪢 👽
Do you have to think
about being in the middle of forever?
Or are you now?
@ChhaviVatwani
September 28, 2026 at 12:14 am
❤😊 thank you for bringing such human facts and heart to the forefront. 🌻🌻
@haigha-qb4kf
September 28, 2026 at 5:42 am
👏🏼
@GoldenZenith108___offficial
September 28, 2026 at 10:57 am
👏🙌
@AbdulwhabAaa
September 28, 2026 at 12:26 pm
This story is beautiful❤