Liu Xia Exhibit at Lora Robins Gallery

Born in Beijing in 1959, Liu Xia is a poet, painter, and photographer, and the wife of the imprisoned Liu Xiaobo, 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner, whose “crime” as a major advocate of democracy, religious freedom, and human rights was the presentation to Chinese authorities of a letter signed by tens of thousands of Chinese citizens pleading for greater openness and accountability. Liu Xia has been under extralegal house arrest in Beijing since January 2010.

The Silent Strength of Liu Xia: An Exhibition of Photographs features photographs depicting life-like dolls that represent Chinese people, the artist, and her husband. The dolls are positioned in a series of vignettes that evoke confinement, repression, manifesting escape from authoritarian control and censorship.

The University of Richmond, The First Freedom Center, and Virginia Commonwealth University have brought the exhibit to the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature, where it will be on view from March 1 through April 28, 2013. The event is free and open to the public.

To read more about the exhibit and the artists from a preview article published by Style Weekly of Richmond, visit www.styleweekly.com/richmond/china-dolls/Content?oid=1829543.