White Road

From 1998 to 2005, Ivan Sigal worked, lived and travelled in Central Asia, traversing Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. He roamed with a dual identity: on the one hand designing media projects with local communities; on the other, an itinerant documentarian. The images from his multi-year odyssey reveal the unsettled lives of Eurasians in provincial towns and cities. Alongside the photos, an episodic narrative unfolds: vignettes chronicling Sigals encounters while tracing his restless passage through the landscape. Through image and text, White Road addresses what was left behind when the Soviet Unions ideological superstructure was stripped away, eliminating the grand narrative that imposed meaning on peoples lives. The cumulative effect is that of a search without a centre or apparent goal. We sense that circumstances of history and power propel ussubject, traveller, and readerfrom encounter to encounter, and from place to place. The term white road means safe journey in Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uzbek. These words are printed on road signs at the edges of Central Asian towns, wishing travellers well as they enter the emptiness of the steppe. Ivan Sigal is a documentary photographer who works on long-term storytelling projects. Born in 1969 in Pennsylvania, he has lived for extensive periods in the former Soviet Union and in Asia. Sigals Eurasia work has been exhibited in cities across the former Soviet Union and in the United States. He also designs and creates international media projects, with a focus on networked communities.