Time running out to visit ‘Always Lost’ at Western Nevada College

Western Nevada College invites the public to a reception for the final display of its nationally acclaimed traveling arts and humanities exhibition, “Always Lost: A Meditation on War.” The exhibition is in the main art gallery at the WNC Carson City campus, through July 29. WNC is located at 2201 West College Parkway in Carson City.

The exhibition, which began as a WNC creative writing class in 2009, is coming home after being displayed at more than 50 venues across the nation.

In fall 2008, two WNC professors decried the impersonal nature of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Professors Don Carlson and Marilee Swirczek envisioned a photography and literary exhibition to personalize the wars. It included original literary work by students, veterans and their families and other Nevada writers. The project also included the “Wall of the Dead,” individual photographs with names of U.S. military service members who perished in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since Sept. 11, 2001.

The Dallas Morning News granted permission to use its 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning Iraq War combat photographs as part of the exhibition. Photographs and profiles of three WNC student veterans remind us of the thousands of service members returning home from war, and original poetry by Army SPC Noah C. Pierce, who died by suicide after serving two tours in Iraq, shines a light on the epidemic of veteran suicide.