LightBox opens ‘Burdens of a White Dress’ and ‘Tribe’
ASTORIA — LightBox Pho-
tographic Gallery will open
two exhibits with distinct fo-
cuses from 6 to 9 p.m. Satur-
day, March 12. “Burdens of a
White Dress” is a series by Jen
Kiaba, and “Tribe” is a group
show, juried by Blue Mitchell
of Diffusion magazine.
Kiaba is an artist and ed-
ucator who grew up in an
oppressive religious cult, the
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and made her way out in her
early 20s. Now an award-win-
ning photographer who lives
and works in Rhinebeck, New
York, Kiaba believes that we
experience healing and libera-
tion when we access our inner
voice and share stories, paving
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own paths to freedom.
“‘Burdens of a White
Dress’ is a set of surreal self
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in a fringe religious move-
ment,” Kiaba says. “The proj-
ect’s title refers to the empha-
sis placed on a woman’s role
in my childhood. A woman’s
value was intrinsically tied to
her purity and virginity; after
marriage that value shifted
into the realm of motherhood.
“Because this was my own
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personal experience of leav-
ing a repressive religious en-
vironment, I often use myself
as a model. My body is then
contorted or manipulated to
demonstrate the internal ef-
fects of the struggle that it
is to free one’s mind from a
controlling belief system and
to demonstrate the repressed
place that femininity had in
my world.”
The stark palette slashed
with red explores the concepts
of shame, evil, wantonness,
and the blood of womanhood,
birth and death.
Also opening in the gallery
Submitted photo
is “Tribe,” a juried group ex- “At the Helm” by Jen Kiaba, an image in the exhibition “Burdens of a White Dress.”
hibit of 25 prints. In this world
of many species, the central
group that binds us together
and allows us to best cope with
our existence is family. Peers,
cousins, mothers, fathers,
sons, daughters, friends, pets,
neighbors — whatever central
group we either identify with
or are connected to by blood,
however small or large, our
tribe nourishes and protects.
A person’s tribe is central to
identity. “Tribe” delves into
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this most intimate, supporting
and loving group.
The exhibits run from
March 12 through April 5.
LightBox is located at 1045
Marine Drive. For more infor-
mation, call 503-468-0238 or
visit lightbox-photographic.
Submitted photo
com.
“Bios” by Roberta Trentin is one of the entries in the juried exhibition “Tribe.”
Submitted photo
Neal Maine will speak about the coastal temperate rainforest March 16 at Seaside library.
Neal Maine to explain
‘How to See a Rainforest’
Go below the surface March 16
SEASIDE — Rain plus trees
equals rainforest, right? Not
really, says naturalist and pho-
tographer Neal Maine. That
equation doesn’t begin to cap-
ture the complex interactions
among air, water, leaf, soil,
microorganisms and all the
other elements required to cre-
ate a temperate rainforest.
Maine will lead a conver-
sation in words and images
about the forest native to this
coast in the free presentation
“How to See a Rainforest,” at
6 p.m. Wednesday, March 16
at Seaside Public Library. It’s
the third program in the 2016
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Steve Azar
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342 10th St. Astoria, OR
503.440.9761
www.yoganam.com
2 | March 10, 2016 | coastweekend.com
Deana Carter
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Listening to the Land speaker
series, which is focused on the
theme of water. Refreshments
will be served.
To begin to understand the
local rainforest — past, pres-
ent and future — you need to
do more than follow the rain as
it splashes on a tree’s needles,
runs down the bark, and reach-
es the roots in the soil.
“They look like a bunch
of individual trees, but in fact
they are literally all commu-
nicating with one another,”
Maine says.
Maine will take listeners
below the surface, from how
things seem to work to how —
according to the latest science
— they really work, plus what
scientists still don’t under-
stand about the rainforest.
After a 30-year career as a
biology teacher at Seaside High
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executive director of North
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Since his retirement in 2010,
he has pursued his passion of
photography to develop greater
public appreciation of living in
what he considers paradise.
Listening to the Land is a
winter speaker series present-
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servancy and the Necanicum
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ship with the Seaside library.
