Journey: Dan Eldon’s Images of War and Celebrations Peace is a powerful record of the life and creative vision of artist, activist, and adventurer Dan Eldon. Although Dan was killed over 20 years ago in Somalia while working for Reuters news agency, his images remain fresh and relevant.
The exhibit provides a more immediate and experiential approach to Dan’s life and art than books or shorter media allow and connect viewers to their own desires to lead a creative and meaningful life. Filled with both dark and celebratory images, Dan’s journals and photographs have made him an inspirational figure for many.
Journey is just that – a journey that winds its way through youthful creativity and exploration, to the horrors of war that so deeply impacted Dan’s psyche, and, finally, to the amazing aftermath of how one artist’s legacy has affected hundreds of thousands.
Journey began as a traveling exhibit of Dan Eldon’s photographs sponsored by the Associated Press soon after his death. Reproductions of Eldon’s collage journal pages were added by the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art during an exhibit there in 1997; in 2006, these panels were upgraded during a major show at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
The exhibit has been shown on six continents and at major colleges and universities around the United States, including:
•Oklahoma University
•Santa Monica College
• Wellesley College
• Boston College
• Columbia University (opened by Dan Rather)
• Duke University
• Edmonds Community College, WA State
• Saba Gallery, New York
• Hamilton Gallery, London
• England University of Tel Aviv, Israel
• UNESCO, Paris
• Sundance Film Festival
Funding and support for the exhibition have been provided at various times by the
following foundations and grantees, in addition to numerous in-kind donations:
• Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• Reuters Foundation
• University of Missouri School of Journalism
• Humanities Iowa
• Sierra Canyon High School