Detail: This exhibition will show a selection of photographs from award-winning photographer Carolyn Drake's recent documentary work in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, two small and little-known countries in post-Soviet Central Asia, a landlocked region situated between Russia, China, Afghanistan and Iran.
Before becoming part of the U.S.S.R, the area was called Turkestan and its people tended to identify themselves by their way of life, either nomadic or sedentary. Communities were organized around regional, clan-like political networks. Most people pratised Islam. The Soviet government absorbed these lands in the 1920s, banning religion, centralizing political control, and assigning ethnic identities to people: Uzbek, Tajik, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Kazakh. The creation of irregular administrative boundaries are now national borders.
The social and economic ties between these people span centuries, since the region lies at the heart of ancient trade routes connecting the Mediterranean with Asia; and cultural links remain visible today despite the varied geography and artificial divisions created by national borders. The connectedness is also environmental, because the countries share a water-intensive system of cotton monoculture (introduced during Soviet times) and a diminishing supply of water running down from the mountains in the East.
Carolyn Drake is one of the most exciting documentary photographers working today. Her work also resonates strongly with the historic displays in the Pitt Rivers Museum, and provides a unique insight into the often difficult lives of people in Central Asia as they struggle with environmental change and the political and economic turmoil of the post-Soviet times.

Admission is free.