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Ivan Sigal has a classic Washington resume: A master’s degree from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Diplomacy; extensive overseas travels as a journalist and new-media trainer; onetime senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace; affiliation with the World Bank Institute; currently executive director of a nonprofit that promotes online global citizens’ journalism. But all that won’t get you on the walls of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Being a photographer in far-flung locales can. That’s what Sigal did between 1998 and 2005, documenting rural life in such Central Asian nations as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. The title of the 100-image-and-text exhibit, “White Road,” translates as “safe journey,” a sign often posted at the edge of the steppe—the last indication of civilization for a long while. It’s also a metaphor for the region: The exhibit aims to report and analyze “what was left behind when the Soviet Union’s ideological superstructure was dismantled, eliminating the grand narrative that once imposed meaning on people’s lives.”