Ryan Spencer Reed

Ryan Spencer Reed (born 1979) is an American social documentary photographer. He has worked in central and east Africa in the capacity of a photojournalist covering the Sudanese Diaspora since 2002.^[1] After returning from covering the War in Darfur, in late summer 2004, he and his work have moved about North America to universities in the form of traveling exhibitions and lectures. They have become the driving force, and ultimately the cultural backdrop, for broader symposiums designed to grapple with the issues facing the Sudanese people. The Open Society Institute & Soros Foundation awarded him with the Documentary Photography Project's Distribution Grant in 2006.^[2][3] While exhibiting and speaking internationally on the subject of Sudan, Reed has photographed extensively on the hubris of power amidst the twilight of the American industrial revolution, which is touring in exhibition form. Since Spring of 2012,^[4] Reed took on a long-term project on the modern incarnation of the Band of Brothers: 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne through training and a deployment to Afghanistan. This work was unveiled in its entirety at the Grand Rapids Art Museum in the Fall of 2014. The work aims to catalyze a dialogue on the dissonance between the myths and realities of war.^[5]

Group exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

“Sudan: The Cost of Silence”:

Visiting artist lectures

• Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois^[74][75][76]
• Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts^[77][78]
• Glenbow Museum, Alberta Canada^[79][80]
• Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
• University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
• Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Michigan
• Kean University, New Jersey^[81]
• University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont^[82][83]
• Weber State University Convocation, Ogden, Utah^[84]
• King's College, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania^[85]
• Furman University, South Carolina
• Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids, Michigan
• University of Illinois, Springfield, Illinois^[86]

In addition to nearly all of the aforementioned solo exhibition venues^[87]

Awards

• Pictures of the Year International (POYi) World Understanding Award Judges' Special Recognition "Despite Similarities to Reality"^[88]
• Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2015 Finalist^[89]
• Freedom to Create Prize, "Sudan: The Cost of Silence^[90]
• Open Society Foundations & Soros Foundation Documentary Photography Project Distribution Grant, "Sudan: The Cost of Silence"^[91]

Selected publications

• This is Not a Requiem for Detroit Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2011, pp. 124–147.^[92]
• Detroit Forsaken, Ryan Spencer Reed Photo Technique Magazine, March/April 2011.^[93]
• "Darfur/Darfur: Life/War." New York: DK Melcher Media, 2008. ISBN 1-59591-045-X. Reed is one of the eight photographers of this book.^[94][95][96]
• Google Earth Mapping Initiatives: Crisis in Darfur Layers. Reed is one of the seven photographers.^[97][98]

References

External links

• Government Operations Committee Testimony on Sudan Divestment- HOUSE BILL No. 4854 July 24, 2007
• Website of Ryan Spencer Reed and The Cost of Silence Exhibitions