Washington Pavilion Visual Arts Center to Present NO ONE ASKED US, 10/16

Sioux Falls (7/25/2016) The Washington Pavilion Visual Arts Center is excited to announce the opening ofNo One Asked Us, a fine art photographic exhibition by local photographer and Assistant Professor of Photography at Augustana University, Anna Reich, in the Center's Jerstad Gallery. The exhibition runs now through October 16, 2016.

No One Asked Us is a collection of photographs considering collective memory, identity, and landscape in Lithuania and Latvia. These images document the generational effects of war, occupations, and human rights infringements on various communities in the Baltic Nations. The work presents details of the ways in which the people and landscape have been shaped and reshaped, the way cultural symbolism and significance has been assigned, stripped, and applied anew, and the effects of prolonged change on identity and the human condition. No One Asked Us was created in communities, both rural and urban, photographing the natural and architectural landscape, specifically highlighting the areas that feature buildings, monuments, landmarks, and historically significant sites that seem to either be fixed in the past or represent a compression of time and history from the last century. In addition to photographing public and social spaces, Reich worked intimately with many people from these communities, accessing their domestic and personal spaces to present photographs of quiet moments from life today.

Kara Dirkson, Washington Pavilion Visual Arts Center Director shared that, "Reich's photography has a rawness that hits on a personal level. It explores the lingering evidence of the Nazi and Soviet presence in the Baltic nations. The quality of her photography alone is outstanding; when examined within the social and historic context of this region, it is profound."

Reich employs the genres of still life, landscape, and portraiture. A sharp knife rests on a lace tablecloth, a forest nearly consumes the sky, and close-up images of children and elderly men and women gaze at us, or at the distance. Reich captured these images in Lithuania and Latvia, two countries in Northern Europe on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Some of the resulting images are concrete; others are more abstract. Reich's close-cropped portraits focus our eyes on the faces of the people she met in Lithuania and Latvia. In other photographs, such as Lampshade, objects begin to take on new meaning; the torn fabric in Lampshadeappears more like a landscape than a light fixture. Reflecting on ground and oppression, Reich allows little or none of the sky to appear in many of these photos, producing a weighty, suffocating atmosphere.

There is no additional charge to see the Anna Reich's exhibition. Admission to ALL seven galleries of the Visual Arts Center is included with admission to the Visual Arts Center.

The Washington Pavilion is the region's home for the arts, entertainment and science. Located in a beautifully renovated historic building in downtown Sioux Falls, it is one of only a few facilities in the world to bring together under one roof the performing arts, visual arts and interactive science. The vast array of high quality programming and educational activities available through the Husby Performing Arts Center, Kirby Science Discovery Center, Visual Arts Center and the Community Learning Center ensures that people of all ages and walks of life can rely upon the Washington Pavilion to entertain, inspire, educate and enrich. There is, indeed, something for everyone here. For information about our programs, please call (605) 367-7397 or, (toll free) at 1-877-Wash Pav or visit our website at www.washingtonpavilion.org.