Russian Colonial Central Asia is the focus of a photography exhibit at Carleton College featuring a series of prints from the oeuvre of the photographer known as Orden, who traveled in Central Asia in 1888. The exhibit was curated by Dr. Heather Sonntag of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who will appear at Carleton to speak about the exhibit on Wednesday, April 2 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in the Weitz Center for Creativity, Room 236. Entitled, “Historical Photography of Russian Colonial Central Asia, 1858-1918,” Sonntag’s presentation is free and open to the public.
The exhibit, “Picturing Russian Colonial Central Asia,” is compiled from photographs in the Anahita Gallery Collection in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and will be on display in the Weitz Center for Creativity, Room 148, April 2 though 11. Admission is free.
Anahita Gallery, Inc. maintains the largest commercial archive of vintage 19th century and early twentieth century Russian and Central Asian photography in the United States. The Anahita Gallery Archive collections include photographs from Central Asia by Orden, Divanov, Dudin, Hordet, Pankratiev, and other artists. The Archive also includes hundreds of early Soviet art photographs, primarily from Central Asia. The Archive has a strong focus on Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. It also includes many photographs from the Mideast and Tibetan and Siberian regions.
The Archive Collections, consisting of well over 2000 images, have been widely used as a resource for scholars, publications, and museum exhibition didactic and catalogs.
This event is sponsored by the Middle East Initiative and the Herbert P. Lefler Fund of the History Department. For more information, including disability accommodations, call (507) 222-4214. The Weitz Center for Creativity is located at 320 Third Street in Northfield.