Portraits and Stories from the Rainier Valley
Joanne Petrina, Photographer
As Sound Transit builds a 15.6-mile light rail system from Downtown Seattle to Sea-Tac International Airport that runs through the heart of the Rainier Valley, its public art program, STart, is focusing on Rainier Valley residents and their stories.
Photographer Joanne Petrina found inspiration and fertile ground for her work along the six-mile stretch of Seattle’s Rainier Valley, from Jackson Street to Renton, home to one of the country’s highest concentrations of immigrants and refugees. She spent four years interviewing and making fine art portraits of first generation immigrants in the Valley. The narratives edited from those conversations reflect each subject’s experiences journeying to and living in the U.S — many were tales of hardships, dangers, persecution and the ravages of war that often set the stage for their exodus. Their stories individually and collectively provide a poignant, thought-provoking perspective of our society’s struggle with immigration and what it means to live in America.
See Rainier Valley Narrative
The exhibit is currently showing in Seattle Washington, then will move throughout the Central Puget Sound Region. We are currently looking for new venues to exhibit Rainier Valley Narrative; if you are interested in hosting this project, please drop us a line.
Online Gallery
See Rainier Valley Narrative virtually through this online gallery. Includes expanded narratives, so you can learn more about these residents of the Rainier Valley.
Visit the gallery now >>
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About the Artist
Joanne Petrina is a documentary and portrait photographer living and working in Seattle. She has studied photography at the University of Washington and the Photographic Center Northwest.
She has also traveled extensively and brings to her work a sensibility that is born of an appreciation for culture and a humanistic approach. Her first body of work is from Cuba, which presents an intimate look at a society deeply intertwined with ours in the U.S. while being politically and socially cut off for the last fifty years.
Most recently she has been creating a photo documentary about the immigrant and refugee communities in the Rainier Valley of Seattle, a collection of portraits and narratives that speak of the wealth of cultural diversity in this unique part of the city. This work will also be exhibited at Harborview Medical Center and the Columbia City Gallery in July and August and at Seattle City Hall in September and October, 2007. Learn more at www.joannepetrina.com
Rainier Valley Narrative is sponsored by Sound Transit and The Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute
For more information on STart contact:
Jennifer Babuca
Art Program Coordinator
206-398-5120
babucaj@soundtransit.org