Wednesday, November 18 @ 5:00 – 6:15pm
Chazen Auditorium
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Interdisciplinary artist, educator, and visual journalist Raymond Thompson Jr. explores how race, memory, representation, and place combine to shape the Black environmental imagination of the North American landscape.
Thompson won the 1619 Aftermath Grant (2023) and the 2021 Lenscatch Student Prize (2021). He has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions, including the Fotofest Biennial Ten by Ten: Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place 2022-23 (2024). His work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. He is the author of Appalachian Ghost, published in 2024 by the University Press of Kentucky, and It’s hard to stop rebels that time travel published by Void Books.
His professional experience extends to freelance photography, where he has collaborated with renowned organizations such as The New York Times, The Intercept, NBC News, NPR, Politico, ProPublica, The Nature Conservancy, ACLU, WBEZ, Google, Merrell, Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine, and the Associated Press.
Thompson is based in Austin, Texas, where he is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. His academic journey includes an MFA in Photography from West Virginia University, an MA in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and a degree in American Studies from the University of Mary Washington. raymondthompsonjr.com