Lauren's Research
Lauren Paljusaj
As part of Gallery Practices: Exhibition Design and Development (ART 410), a Fall 2019 class and Spring 2020 independent study, I began researching objects held in the UNLV Special Collections and Archives (SCA).The goal of the class was to research and propose an art exhibition using photographs from SCA. The proposal was approved by the curators of Special Collections, and the second semester of the class focused on finalizing the image checklists, creating mockups of the exhibition cases, and writing copy for the exhibition, The exhibition is entitled Artists Respond: Intimate Nevada, and was scheduled to open April 15, 2020 at Special Collections.
I selected specific photographs based on the following criteria: location, composition, subject matter, and implied meaning. Some of these photographs had no identifying material other than the name of the collections they belonged to. I used collection finding aids to locate related collections to read letters, ledger books, and other types of materials that could potentially give information on the photographs themselves and the historical context. For example, I spent a lot of time working with the C. A. Earle Rinker Photograph Collection, and I sought out the Rinker Papers, which contains letters Rinker wrote to his family, to determine if the postcard of a tent bearing the name “Waldorf-Astoria” was a place that Rinker had lived in, or if it was just a landmark of the mining camp. I did research on photographic techniques and formats to help determine time periods and the equipment used to capture the photographs.
Part of my job as a student assistant in Special Collections and Archives is to write finding aids for our collections that provide enough information for researchers to locate materials and get started on their projects. The difference while I was working on my own research project was that I got to step to the other side and do deep dives into materials, instead of just describing them and listing the inventory. I was able to think like a researcher, and put pieces together to form a complete story of the objects.
Using the subjects of vernacular photography, the history of frontier photography, and social history, the goal of my research was to find the role of place in photography. I’m interested in how we view the places around us in the everyday context of life, how that appears in what we choose to photograph and look at, and if those ideas change over time. As I mentioned above, I used primary sources from Special Collections and Archives. Outside of Special Collections and Archives, I used journal databases to search for articles related to these subjects, and I checked out books from the Lied Library and the Interlibrary Loan system. Using these secondary sources, I was able to contextualize my chosen photographs in the social landscape of early 20th century Nevada, as well as give more meaning to each individual object. This enabled me to piece together a story of a place that no longer exists.
The biggest challenge I faced while working on this project was having to choose between using original objects for the proposed exhibition or making reproductions. Which objects should be displayed in their original form, which should be reproduced, and why? Each photograph in the exhibition has unique qualities that influenced my decision to include it. The physicality of the objects was an important factor in their inclusion, whether it’s the emulsion fading in certain parts of a print, giving it almost holographic qualities, or the hundred-year-old typewritten letters on onion skin paper.
Working on Artists Respond: Intimate Nevada enabled me to experience primary source research firsthand. Researching my chosen photographs, combined with using secondary sources, I came to the conclusion that importance of place spans centuries. It’s why we take photos of monuments and vacation spots, buy postcards, and personalize our homes and offices. What these environments look like changes over time, but places shape our memories and give homes to our experiences.