A new photography exhibit opening this week at Philomath Museum will document one of Oregon’s darkest chapters — the 1856 forced removal of hundreds of Native American men, women and children from Southern Oregon to a reservation more than 260 miles away.
“Oregon’s Trail of Tears,” created by Albany photographer Nolan Streitberger, opens Aug. 8 in the Moreland Gallery and runs through March 27. Philomath Museum is open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Admission is free, though donations are welcome.
The exhibit centers on the journey that began Feb. 22, 1856, when U.S. Indian Agent George H. Ambrose carried out orders from General Joel Palmer to remove several hundred Indigenous people from their homeland in Southern Oregon and march them to a reservation in the mid-Willamette Valley. The 32-day journey covered 263 miles and was marked by deceit, suffering, death and murder, according to exhibit materials published online by the Benton County Historical Society.
Streitberger spent several years researching the project before beginning to photograph it, working through thousands of historical letters and 1850s-era survey maps alongside modern satellite imagery to retrace the route. That research allowed him to locate roads used during the march that no longer exist, as well as others still in use today.
To create the images, Streitberger used an antique wooden view camera and the wet plate collodion process — the same photographic method used in the 1850s. The resulting landscape photographs are paired with journal entries Ambrose wrote during the actual expedition. Streitberger has said the technical imperfections inherent to the historical process — flaws that occur somewhat by chance — lend the images a ghostly quality that echoes the history they depict.
Streitberger first learned photography as a high school student through Oregon State University’s JumpstART program, a pre-college arts program. He went on to earn degrees in graphic design and digital imaging and prepress technology.
He returned to photography as an artist after being laid off from a graphic design job at Hewlett Packard around the time he and his wife had their daughter. He now works across digital photography, film and alternative processes, including wet plate collodion shot on an antique large-format view camera.
“Oregon’s Trail of Tears” was selected as a Critical Mass 2023 finalist, and the project has received grant support from the Oregon Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kinsman Foundation. Streitberger’s work has appeared in Musee Magazine, Der Spiegel, Bento, ZEITjUNG, Flavorwire, Edge of Humanity Magazine and SHOTS Magazine, and has been recognized by the Smithsonian Photography Awards and the Palm Springs Photo Festival.
Streitberger’s exhibition history includes Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, the Colorado Photographic Arts Center in Denver, PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury, Vermont and LoosenArt at Millepiani Gallery in Rome, Italy.
Philomath Museum is open 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Admission is free but donations are welcome.