Ryan Henyard is an educator, an activist, and an artist. And fortunately for our purposes, he is also a birder. Ryan's solo exhibit, Reclaiming the Wild opens tomorrow, August 29th at the African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County with a general reception at 6pm. This solo exhibit features Ryan's pictures of natural areas and wildlife around the county.
Ryan was gracious enough to agree to an interview where we discussed the intersection of birding and social justice as well as the need for all creatures in our county to have a safe habitat.
Damn Arbor: Could you tell me a little bit about this exhibit that's opening up?
Ryan Henyard: Sure. This exhibit is called Reclaiming the Wild. It is my 1st solo gallery exhibition. Part of the impetus behind this was that I've been trying to grow into the identity of an artist … I didn't feel comfortable calling myself that because you start comparing yourself to others in contemporaries and you go, “ok, those folks are doing this for living or people are really at a skill level that I can't hope to match.” As I grew more with my photography and started taking it a little more seriously over the past few years. It became clear that I did want to find a way to reach more folks with what I was doing. The response to the photography that I'm using in this exhibition has just been phenomenal. There's a number of things I hear from people-- that, look up at, what's going on in their neighborhood, at what's going on in the sky, what's going on in their environments because of photos I took has been really just humbling and powerful.
I wanted to spread that to an audience who may not normally be getting that kind of content. And to cross pollinate with my social justice work and community work. For people who are used to seeing these kind of activist spaces that I'm in,to understand this part of my life and my artistic mindset and how it works in with all the other community work and how it supports it. I feel like it's necessary for me to have both of these, balancing pieces of where I spend a lot of my non-work time. To me it's something that makes perfect sense, but I realize that it's not something that is easily legible. So this exhibit is a way to make that, readable for more people and hopefully give them some ways into understanding what being outside and in the natural world does for me--how it connects with the history of Washtenaw and to put down and claim roots here and what drives me going forward and what lets me keep doing the work I do.
DA: That's awesome. Would you be able to talk a little bit more about the intersection between wildlife photography and social justice? I think that's so interesting.
RH: Oh, absolutely. I think that there's a lot. Outside of my day job, I'm a trustee for Avalon housing a place where we are doing permanent supportive housing and a housing first model. That model really highlights the need for making sure that people have a stable place to live, a stable habitat in order for them to make any kind of recovery or any kind of continued progress towards a safer existence, no matter what's going on in their lives. It's something that we take as an article of faith but also something that's backed up by a ton of research. In the wildlife space, I spend a lot of time in parks and nature reserves and running in to people on trails who talk about the disappearing habitat for a number of wildlife. You know, it's really upsetting that there's going to be a gravel mine proposed out near the state park or how there's only so many wetlands or so many particular host species. The first step to reintroducing these species is to make sure that they have, a stable place to live--a habitat—that supports their wellbeing.
I run into people in both spaces--both in the urban space and the outdoor nature space who never think about the other side of these things, who will naturally advocate for habitat for wildlife, but understand the need for housing in a county that's dealing with the housing crisis. Or people who focus on saying “well, we want housing in these parts of town but not this part of town” and me having to remind them “Hey, access to green space is something that is you really powerful for our human neighbors too.” If you can understand that there's a need for these things that we can find ways to serve both. That's one of the things that I think about as I'm driving out and around having these conversations with people who, often find themselves on opposing views in in these things when really there's a lot of overlap in terms of what people care about. Trying to get people to care about something slightly different is something that I'm able to do at times with the photography.
The other big thing with social justice is I spent a lot of time doing work on really emotionally heavy things. Housing is not easy. To be working on housing and homelessness, dealing with folks who have lost a lot and are really struggling against our capitalist hellscape of 2026. I've done a lot of work on, on police brutality and on non- police violence intervention, and crisis response--work that requires a lot of navigation of conflict and a lot of community building there is a whole lot of emotional weight that you carry when you deal with a lot of these really fraught things. You're dealing with really tough emotions, you're dealing with a ton of traumatic issues that people are dealing with--Traumatic histories around some of our communities . Trying to do all that while still being able to get a decent night’s sleep-- feeling like I can like myself in the mirror when I look into it about. About how I'm spending my time in the world and being able to come home and not be a jerk because I'm emotionally regulating myself. The time spent in the wild has dramatically improved me. It's been really great to stay more and more positive--to stay more open to people's experience.
DA: I think that's really fascinating.
RH: I think it's really helped me be more holistic in how I approach a lot of the the campaigns and work that I work on.
DA: I don't want to make you a spokesperson for all Black birders but like this is at the exhibitors at the African American Cultural and Historic Museum. I'm about how did you get into birding and wildlife photography.
RH: This exhibit is mostly birds but there’s going to be some of my favorite other wildlife. I think I have some Blanding’s turtles and some and some other things around, you know, and some photos and videos that I'm gonna include.
I grew up loving birds. I grew up in Detroit. We we had a pretty large corner yard. My father used to always feed blue jays pretty much all year round where they wouldn't leave. But the idea of being like a birder wasn't something that felt really tangible to me until around the pandemic.
I love particularly doing travel and landscape photography. All those things kind of went out the window while we were in lockdown. I'm someone who's immunocompromised, so I very much was locked into the house. The somewhat embarrassing but also like incredibly true story that I stayed inside for so long at the start of the pandemic that I lost my car keys and didn't care because I really wasn't going anywhere. By the time I found them my battery was dead. I had to call Triple A and get a jump because I really didn't go anywhere. So in order to start trying to ease my way out of the poor mental state that many of us were in as we're going through this, I started going to a number of different parks. I set myself a goal of trying to go to all the different Metro Parks around the area and taking pictures. I had a couple of really great encounters with wildlife out there and kept thinking, “Oh man, if I had better camera gear, maybe I could get a picture of this heron that keeps teasing me every evening.” And I found myself accidentally building sort of a wellness routine--spending time driving out, trying poorly to get some photos, looking at finding some older lenses I can adapt for my camera so that I can do a little more range stuff and you know really just start enjoying it. When I found something that I didn't know about previously, it would be an excuse to go home and look up.
And then come back the next day with more information and more knowledge. It turned into like a pretty rewarding feedback loop. But I did definitely have this big awareness of not seeing others like me and in these spaces. When I started branching beyond even just the Metro Parks to other parks and nature preserves--you know, not always feeling welcome in different spaces-- understanding that as much joy as I was having from doing this that there was also a real unfairness and not feeling like I can fully enjoy this in the way that others can.
I started to share some of the images I was taking and starting to post them on Facebook, on Instagram, and sharing them with family. People were really thrilled with seeing what was going on. Even if it was just the things that were taken through my window out at the bird feeder, I was bringing some joy and peace when everybody really needed it. I started to connect with other Black birders online and in other spaces. There was a Black Birders Week that was started by a group called Black A F in STEM. I remember participating in one of those early groups and getting to know some folks with similar inclinations and similar joys of experience out in other parts of the Midwest--Wisconsin or Indiana or Ohio or other parts of Michigan. There were so many people who heard about it and said, “oh, I want to go on a bird walk with you.” And that's not always the best for me since the birding time is usually the solo to get out of my head time. But it has, really shown me that there is a real understanding and desire for people to gain the benefits of spending time out in nature—that people want to learn more of these things. In particular a number of Black folks in the area with a historical and ancestoral relationship with these birds and will have connections to them. Where their family members will make them think about grandparents or aunts and uncles. We're in this weird moment where birding feels cool to young folks.
DA: That feels still bizarre to me too.
RH: For birding to be considered cool--you know, going out, waiting or wading around wetlands, doing birding-- it has been something that's been really exciting to connect this to the African American Cultural and Historical Museum. It spent a long time as a museum without walls and I had been connected with it in various different projects. In the past couple years they have renovated this old historic home, the David Birth Center, to host these events. I remember thinking “oh, well, if they're hosting these kind of events, maybe this is a place where I could try to take that next step as an artist and present some of this material” --to have a little more space to talk about the work and what it means to me: how I end up using it for my own mental health and how I use it in some of my other social justice and teaching work.
Something I forgot to mention is that I've used a lot of the proceeds from selling my photography--you know, I'm blessed to have a day job that didn't doesn't require me to use my art in order to eat--that I've been donating a pros a portion of the proceeds or all the proceeds in some cases for a lot of photos to various different causes. There’s a document I put together, a little zine every year, “Ryan's community giving guide,” a big list of organizations. It usually contains a bunch of wildlife photos. It’s more or less propaganda of towards a more care based world and some of the wildlife that I know people will look at and also list out a bunch of the different nonprofits and organizations that I support.
I’m not independently wealthy so I’ve tried to find ways to lift up a lot of people doing good work and the safety net around different areas. I think we're now like year six going on year seven. I generally try to add a section every year focusing on a group in an area of things that really feel like they're in focus, everything from organizations preventing water shutoffs to organizations doing urban farming like Growing Hope or within people or Trinity Farm. It's just been a good way to connect the things. I like to try to find ways for everything to mesh where I can. It makes life a lot easier, because for me they're all mixed up, and so I find ways to connect all those things together, save myself some time, probably the most synergistic and efficient thing that I do that isn't accidental. It is pretty intentional cause I think that it's pretty easy to separate all these different parts of yourself or all these different parts of your work. I think there's benefits to seeing them come together.
DA: Awesome. I'm going to have some rapid fire questions. Are you ready?
RH: Okay.
DA: All right. What's your favorite burning spot in Washtenaw County.
RH: Watkins Lake State Park and County. It's around Brooklyn Michigan a little north of Manchester. It's on the far west side of the county. It is historically cool because it's in a certified underground railroad spot. So cool. In addition to being a really awesome park, it's really accessible for folks with mobility or disability needs. There's a giant lake that is bisected by a big road. So you can literally drive by and see a ton of wildlife and some great sunsets without having to even get out the car. There's an active bald eagle nest out there that you can get to see bald eagles. I I'm probably out there maybe like two or three times a week. Which isn't great for my gas tank, but has been really great for my mental health. There’s a number of really great parks and preserves along the way so I can make a big loop when going out west. It's something that I didn't know about until like 2020, 2021and it's definitely become a real favorite of mine.
DA: That's awesome. I Do you know Sharon Hollow?
RH: Out there? Yes yes. I used to, when I was.
DA: When I was a grad student I taught the Woody plants class at U of M and my favorite field trip was Sharon Hollow. That's just such a beautiful part of the county. It's really incredible.
RH: Yeah, the history Sharon Mill, you know, is out there and still has like a ton of wildflowers and like lots of like time to go find, like, you know, people love butterflies, they usually take them out there and and show them some of the some of the stuff. It's it's really just like stunning how much really gorgeous space there is and how many places there are to just be kind of, you know, pretty much out in the open and, and, and have like a ton of nature encounters so relatively close to home. It's really rad.
DA: Favorite Bird species?
RH: Ooh, that's tough. That's tough for the location. I think that it is probably the sandhill crane. I think I just spend so much time with them now. They are just really charismatic. They stick around all year in some parts of the county so I get to see a number of them. But I think that they're being given a run for their money by the trumpeter to swan who I've been really falling for. There's a pair of trumpter to swans that nests at Parker and Scio Church road, just right off the little corner. One of my photos from the exhibition's called the Vigil--one of the swans sitting on the nest and like looking over her wing at me. I spend like maybe 15 min a day for about two months straight every spring with them. I just learned to love these gigantic, sometimes goofy, really, really gorgeous swans, between those two is the best I can do.
DA: That's good. Those are great. I like I'm seeing more and more. I remember not seeing any sandhill cranes until I was a young adult. I remember being out in the woods and hearing them and just being wowed.
RH: It feels like feels like hearing a dinosaur in Jurassic Park or something and it's slowly coming to you. You can hear from almost a mile away. It's really just incredible. Whenever I think about them and spend time with them it’s something I get to enjoy because when I was younger the conservation work has been a success. Considering how many gigantic societal failures were like living through. At the moment having a few things that are doing so much better now because we changed something. Those bald eagles like I said I'm like seeing a bald eagle every week is absolutely wild thing to say that I can go do.
DA: Right, right. I didn't see a bald eagle in Michigan until 2009. You don't see them every day, but they're there and you can find them and it's really cool to see. I agree. Do you have a favorite picture in the exhibit?
Ryan Henyard: I think that I have, yeah, like there's, there's a picture, Light Before we Land. It's a sandhill crane flying directly overhead. I took it at the Botanical Gardens.
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| Light Before we Land by Ryan Henyard |
I think just partly because it felt like a once in a lifetime shot. I also had to do a pretty wicked back bend in order to get the the photo. It was a graduation weekend for Michigan and there was you a graduate in their parents. I was talking to them about sandhill cranes and how awesome they were and pointing out one that was about to fly. Then getting a position to do the thing. All the things are coming together going like, oh, I know enough. I know where that bird's about to take off and I can read the wind enough to know which direction it is going to go in. I've put enough time in to get an idea about where I need to be, what I need to do with the camera. That was one of those moments of. Oh, I actually am really, really good at this. I've really developed this skill and can really take pride in this. I just put a ton of time and patience in and there's actual like artistry. I really should just own this a little bit more as a thing to be proud of rather than a thing to kind of minimizing. So I think that's probably like the favorite in terms of that because it represents that like big skill milestone for me. I love that.
Ben Connor Barrie: Is, is there anything else you wanna add?
RH: Yes, the exhibit's gonna be actually up at the museum through the end of the year. I'm planning on hosting a series of events that bring in some of the different parts of my like social justice work into the museum space to discuss, so. I did work with the Justice Indeed project looking at racially restricted covenants in Washingaw. And some of the photos are taking in places where there have been historically restricted covenants saying: I took this really gorgeous photo here and look at this incredible ethereal moment, and also I wasn't allowed to live here for a certain amount of time and. How does that make you feel in the outdoors? How do you feel welcome in there now? Do you still feel the ripples of that? In the future? I really wanna dig into some of those, some of those things. I'm also gonna be holding some like stem events for for kids, probably some book readings just to get people excited and interested-- hopefully bringing in the Washtenaw Bird and Nature Alliance, which I got to help rename from the Audubon Society cause, all my homies hate John James Audubon. I got to help make that change. So maybe it's taking some time to talk about some of these small wins for making people feel more included in outdoor spaces and what they can do with them. I think there's gonna be a lot of fun: there'll be a lot more information posted alongside, but I plan to be around during a lot of the time for the exhibit making sure that I'm able to help people understand and learn more about the incredible things that are around us in the county. We have a pretty wonderful range of activities with wildlife that we can go do, and I don't take it for granted. I want everyone to have access to that kind of piece and restoration that I get from it, and hopefully it helps people, do the really hard work that we have to do in other parts of our lives yeah before a lot of our stress and pressure. Awesome.
DA: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. I really appreciate it. I'm really looking forward to checking out the exhibit.
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