Eberhard Riedel is a photographer, psychotherapist and teacher living in Seattle, Washington. He graduated in documentary and fine arts photography from the Photographic Center Northwest, earned a Masters in Clinical Social Work from the University of Washington, a Diploma in Analytical Psychology from the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, and a Ph.D. in Physics from the Technische Universität in Munich, Germany.

Riedel felt he needed to move beyond the confines of his clinical practice and make use of his professional and life experiences in a world in which recurring racism, tribalism and fundamentalist ideology are tearing apart the human fabric. Through extensive fieldwork and research in Africa he learned that any attempts to create conditions for reconciliation and lasting peace must address the psychological injuries of participants and survivors of war and tribal violence.

Riedel conceived the idea to use photography for healing and peace in 2004. Photographing in a remote village in South Africa, he found himself surrounded by curious children who wanted to know about his camera and offered to carry his equipment. As a psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of trauma he had made use of play and art therapy in treating children who had suffered trauma and abuse. "Aha," he thought, here is the perfect tool to engage such children and communities and bridge cultural divides. Two years later, in 2006, he initiated the Cameras without Borders - Photography for Healing and Peace project.

Over the past six years well over 500 child and adult survivors of war-related trauma have worked intensively, free of charge, in Riedel's Photography for Healing and Peace workshops in 41 African communities in eastern Congo, Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan and other African countries. Riedel loans participants cameras and invites them to explore their lives and create photographic images. Thus he provides a milieu in which evocative images slowly open participants to powerful affects associated with their emotional wounds. Words and stories then emerge that narrate what truly matters in the struggle for liberation from the emotional prison that trauma is. The universal issue is: The struggle of giving birth to one's future.

A thread that runs through Riedel's photographic work is inspired by an observation of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." To which Riedel adds, There cannot be freedom - absence of war - without mutual curiosity and respect. Riedel's photography is sensitive to interpersonal dimensions and the environment in which he works; he strives to not only document and advocate but also set into motion a process whereby survivors tend to their psychological injuries and communities interrupt the cycle of violence.

Future Plans: Cameras without Borders - Photography for Healing and Peace has scheduled a return visit to eastern Congo for spring and summer 2012 - Concerning activities in eastern Congo please see "A Letter from Eastern Congo" in the Blog, posted August 4, 2011, and the Donations page. A return visit and more fieldwork in Uganda, South Sudan and Kenya are planned for the fall of 2012. For comments, suggestions and inquiries please use the contact information below.

Acknowledgements: Cameras without Borders gratefully acknowledges project sponsorship by the Blue Earth Alliance, Photography Inspiring Social Change, which acts as fiscal agent with not-for-profit status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service code. Riedel much appreciates family, friends and supporters of Cameras without Borders - Photography for Healing and Peace for purchasing photographs, making generous contributions and publicizing the project's efforts in Africa. He thanks Glazer’s Camera in Seattle, WA, for assistance in many ways including supplies for photographic workshops. Last but not least, Riedel deeply appreciates the many individuals, organizations and communities in Africa for their trust, support and hospitality without which the work of Cameras without Borders - Photography for Healing and Peace would not be possible.