The Land Remembers
Jul
9
12:00 PM12:00

The Land Remembers

Corvallis photographer Rich Bergeman will talk about his project called “The Land Remembers,” in which he spent two years searching for landscapes that were involved in Rogue River Wars of Southern Oregon the 1850s.

One of the bloodiest, and yet mostly forgotten, of the Indian conflicts to occur in the Oregon Territory, the Rogue River Wars began as a cycle of clashes and truces between local tribes and the miners and settlers who flooded into southwest Oregon during the early gold-rush and settlement years. The increasing violence eventually erupted into all-out war involving the U.S. Army that finally ended in 1856 with the forced removal of the Rogue Valley and South Coast tribes to reservations at Siletz and Grand Ronde, where many descendants still live today.

Using infrared-sensitive cameras, Bergeman spent two years traveling from the Rogue Valley to the Oregon Coast to photograph scenes at or near the sites of battles, peace parlays, massacres and other significant events that occurred during the war years of 1851-56. He said he did not set out to simply record specific historic sites, but rather to create an “impressionistic experience of the war through views of the idyllic landscapes that played host to such tragic events.”

Bergeman is a retired instructor of journalism and photography at Linn-Benton Community College in Albany. The 75-year-old photographer has been exhibiting his work throughout the Northwest since the 1980s. Over the past two decades he has focused primarily on portraying forgotten Northwest histories through photographs of what’s been left behind. His various projects can be seen at richbergeman.zenfolio.com, and in book form at blurb.com

View Event →
First Friday - Oregon Trail of Tears
Aug
1
5:00 PM17:00

First Friday - Oregon Trail of Tears

Join us at the Albany Regional Museum for a free opening reception Friday, August 1st from 5-7pm for Nolan Streitberger’s latest exhibition, “Oregon’s Trail of Tears”, featuring haunting landscape photography exploring the 1856 route forcefully marched by hundreds of indigenous men, women, and children from Southern Oregon to a Reservation in the Mid-Willamette Valley 263 miles away. A special lecture by Nolan will begin at 5:30pm. The exhibit will be on view through January 31, 2026. Visit ARM’s website at armuseum.com or call 541-967-7122 to learn more.

Admission to our exhibits is waived during First Friday hours!

View Event →