Maggie Soladay

This week on the @opensocietyfoundations Instagram: Photographer Amanda Rivkin follows the route refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq are taking starting in Turkey and continuing through the Western Balkans, and on finally to integration in Germany.  She is doing an amazing job. By starting in Turkey at the border with Syria in 2012, she shows how the waves of asylum seekers escaping Syria didn't begin a month ago, but rather has been building for several years. I am so impressed with her storytelling and successful use of a week-long take over to beautifully give a history lesson that cuts through the noise and the nullifies the inacurate portrayal of this as a 'crisis.'

Bio: Amanda Rivkin is an American photographer whose work has been published in most of the major global news magazines and newspapers.  She holds degrees from the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Sarah Lawrence College.  She is fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish, but can get by in Azeri/Turkish, Bosnian/Serbo-Croat, Catalan, Russian and Slovak, and she reads French. Her work has been recognized with awards and honors from the American Council on Germany, American Photography, the Fulbright Program, the National Geographic Society, and elsewhere.