Ruddy Roye Lecture: When Living Is a Protest
December 11, 2016
10am
Free and open to the public

Radcliffe “Ruddy” Roye discusses his 15-year career in photojournalism and his editorial and environmental portraits. A self-proclaimed “Instagram Activist”, Roye combines powerful images with in-depth narratives. These reflections are drawn from engaged and intimate dialogue with his subjects, and reveal not just the personal but the universal; not just one human’s story, but humanity’s story.

The presentation will take place on the third floor, in the Mint Performance Venue.

Radcliffe Roye is a Brooklyn based documentary photographer specializing in editorial and environmental portraits, and photojournalism. Roye is inspired by the raw and gritty lives of grass-roots people. He shares their stories by bringing their voices to social media and print.

Radcliffe has worked with magazines like National Geographic, New York Times, Vogue, Jet, Ebony, ESPN and Essence and newspapers like New York Newsday. Radcliffe honed his skill as a photojournalist by working as an Associated Press stringer in New York. He is also known for his documentation of the dancehall scene all over the world. Roye has travelled to as far as Brazzaville in the Congo Addis in Ethiopia, Nepal and India to document how the common man lives. He has also worked extensively in his homeland of Jamaica, documenting dancehall music and the way musicians use the language of dance as a tool of activism.

Radcliffe has also been instrumental in leading the Instagram charge, showcasing work from his community of Bed-Stuy and Brooklyn as a whole. The images in his “Black Portraiture” or “I Can’t Breathe” series have sparked discussions on numerous forums online. He was asked to take over the New Yorker Instagram feed when Hurricane Sandy ravaged the eastern shores in October 2012. Since then, Radcliffe has been invited to present by New York University, and the School of Visual Arts, among others. He is also an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University, engaging in conversations with students on the rise of Instagram and the changing face of photojournalism.

Radcliffe’s work is exhibited worldwide, and has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts; Silver Eye Center for Photography; Chastain Arts Center; the Vermont Feick Fine Arts Center; Alice Austen House and Photoville. He has held teaching positions at New York University and the School of Visual Arts and is an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University. His debut solo exhibition, Ruddy Roye: When Living is a Protest, opened at the Stephen Kasher Gallery (New York) in October 2016 to widespread critical acclaim. Roye is one of the youngest members of the Kamoinge Workshop, the seminal black photography collective founded in 1963.

Following Mr. Roye’s presentation there will be a walk through of the POYi exhibition with Director Rick Shaw in the second floor galleries, beginning at 11am.