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Ryan Spencer Reed
Artist bio
Ryan Spencer Reed (b. 1979) is an American photographer whose journey documenting social issues began after graduating from college in 2002 following a move to central and east Africa. Working in that region and covering the Sudanese Diaspora for nearly 9 years, Ryan has entered Sudan a half dozen times in addition to covering the mass exodus of refugees to Eastern Chad and Kenya. This work was widely exhibited in the States and abroad in venues such as the Field Museum, and the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC among many others.. The Open Society Institute & Soros Foundation awarded him with the Documentary Photography Project's Grant to help this work reach additional audiences. While exhibiting and speaking internationally on the subject of Sudan, he is nearing the completion a long-term project on the hubris of power and the twilight of the American industrial revolution. A chapter of this work on Detroit was exhibited in last year's Art Prize, and finished in the top 50.
About the work
Title: Sudan: The Cost of Silence

Art form: 2-D

Medium: Photography

Year created: 2009

Description of work: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing.”

In the wake of nearly three decades of brutal civil war, the population of South Sudan lies shattered and strewn across the Central and East African landscape. More than two and half million people have been killed and another five million have been internally and externally displaced by the conflict. As of July of this year, South Sudan has achieved its independence, seceding from its oppressors and has become the newest nation on the planet. Since January of 2003, however, a new exodus flooded the western border region of Darfur in Sudan with displaced persons fleeing the same regime responsible for the southern tragedy. Despite the fact that the United States has formally labeled this diaspora genocide, the killing continues unchecked, threatening to shed blood on every grain of sand.

The cost of doing nothing is one humanity can never afford.
Height: 9 feet
Width: 60 feet
Depth: 1 feet

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Nikki Kazmar
Artist bio
Nikki Kazmar graduated from Kendall College of Art and Design in the spring of 2011 with a BFA in Painting. During the last year at Kendall, she became involved with Exquisite Corpse Artist Collective where she has been active since. At Exquisite Corpse, she is involved with curating exhibitions, installing exhibitions, and working in the studio space the collective provides her with. Exquisite Corpse focuses on giving emerging artists a venue to show work that might not be accepted at main stream galleries. It also provides its own members a place to be involved with group shows as well as solo shows. She plans to stay involved with the collective to continue developing the ideas that were of interest to her thesis, as well as engaging with the art community.
About the work
Title: I'll Be Fine

Art form: 2-D

Medium: oil painting

Year created: 2011

Description of work: As humans, our minds are always working as we carry out a continuous, silent, internal dialogue. We are not normally given access to the free flowing activity inside some else's mind, but what if we were? As we immerse ourselves into our brain chatter and pursue even deeper thoughts, the environments we live in become foggy and distant, separating our internal realm and the physical reality. To bridge the separation between personal thoughts and the outside world, I'm translating thoughts as they stream through someone's mind allowing the audience to connect and to experience the thought stream.

The process of this painting beings with a photograph of an environment, representing the concrete nature of the physical world, then I've sanded it to push it back into obscurity. The audience must sort through transparent layers of glazes, text, and imagery. to find fleeting ideas and blips of language, then become personally engaged to translate the thought stream.
Height: 4 feet
Width: 8 feet