Abdi Roble is a documentary photographer with a vision for social justice.

In 2005, he had a show about the Somali community at the Riffe Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. His show, “Against Forgetting, Beyond Genocide and Civil War” was at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2006. “Stories of the Somali Diaspora” appeared at the Columbus Museum of Art (2007), the Bates Museum of Art in Lewiston, Maine (2008), the Weisman art Museum in Minneapolis (2009), and the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota (2009-2010). The work also went abroad for inclusion in an exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago, Chile, entitled 100 Years of American Art: A Social Perspective, 1910-2010. His recent exhibit “ The Somali Diaspora; A Journey Away” at the Open Society Institute in New York, NY (2011). Abdi received the Individual Artist Award from the Greater Columbus Arts Council (2006) and the Ohio Arts Council (2004). The South Side Settlement House honored him with the Arts Freedom Award in 2006. He has also taught courses surrounding issues of the Somali Diaspora at the University of Minnesota. In 2009, Abdi received Raymond J. Hanley fellowship Award. Along with writer, Doug Rutledge, his book, The Somali Diaspora, A Journey Away, was published by the University of Minnesota Press (2008). In addition, Abdi has lectured on Somali culture at the Museum of World Culture in Frankfurt, as well as at Oxford and Leeds Universities in the UK. Abdi is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for African Studies at The Ohio State University.