A Conversation with Photographer Radcliffe “Ruddy” Roy and Cultural Theorist Garnette Cadogan

Seeing Black: Disrupting the Visual Narrative brings renowned black photographers together with leading cultural theorist to engage in conversations that explore issues of race and identity.

The  photographers featured in this series question, confront, and provide alternatives to the current rise in divisive, discriminatory, and harmful narratives. These artists challenge the accepted notions of what it means to be black in America and use the power of images to ignite social change.

Ruddy Roye is a Brooklyn-based portrait and documentary photographer. He is inspired by the raw and gritty lives of grassroots people, especially those of his homeland of Jamaica and his Brooklyn community of Bed-Stuy.

The images he produces speak to the human condition, addressing the myriad instances of suffering and injustice he is witness to that are often overlooked. Yet these images of events such as the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, The Black Lives Matter movement, chronic homelessness, and his own personal project, When Living is A Protest, do not merely exist to capture misery, but also to convey resilience and compassion.

Garnette Cadogan is an essayist and Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. His current research explores the promise and perils of urban life, the vitality and inequality of cities, and the challenges of pluralism. He writes about culture and the arts for various publications, including the New York Review of Books. In 2017, he was included in a list of 29 writers from around the world who “represent the future of new writing”. Cadogan is also a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, and has taught at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and New York University.

Events in the auditorium are made possible by the generous support of Ting inc.