RYERSON IMAGE CENTRE

Captive State is an exhibition of photographs taken by Dominic Nahr during two trips to Somalia. In August 2011, Nahr traveled to Mogadishu with Alex Perry (TIME's Africa Bureau Chief) to document the famine in Southern Somalia. They found overwhelming suffering and death; approximately 150,000 of the 2.8 million Somalis affected eventually starved to death. Almost as appalling was the knowledge that a US anti-terrorism policy unwittingly blocked aid to the famine areas for years. Perry writes, "If drought set the conditions for last year's famine in East Africa, it was man who ensured it." When Nahr and Perry returned to Mogadishu the following year, the improvements were tangible, but as Perry states, "If Mogadishu was enjoying its longest sustained peace in 21 years of civil war, you couldn't mistake that for a return to normality."A TIME Contract Photographer and Magnum Photos Nominee, Dominic Nahr graduated from the photography program at Ryerson University in 2008. Dominic Nahr: Captive State will be on view in the Ryerson Image Centre's Student Gallery January 23 - March 10, 2013.