WOMEN - African American Legacy: The Carol Mundy Collection

Two Special Collections exhibits in one week! This post is slightly delayed, but I was actually working on this exhibit at the same time as the Nierman exhibit at the beginning of November. Just slightly delayed...

This exhibit features photographs of women from the 1850s to the 1950s selected from African American Legacy: The Carol Mundy Collection. It was curated by Sandra Varry and was designed and prepared by myself. All of the photos that are on display were scanned, reprinted (some enlarged to assist with viewing), and mounted in order to protect the originals from the UV damage of being on display for several months. The exhibit also has a selection of awesome period cameras that are on loan to us. I feel bad since the photos should be the focus, but the cameras might be my favorite thing.

This exhibit is on the 5th floor exhibit area and will be there until the end of January when it will move into the cases on the main floor during Black History Month. At the end of February it will return to the  5th floor.

Leonardo Nierman

November 1st, 2012 was Leonardo Nierman's 80th birthday and in celebration I've curated a retrospective of his work in the Special Collections department on the main exhibit wall of the UCF Library. Nierman was born in Mexico city in 1932 and has become a internationally recognized artist. We have a large collection of his art at Special Collections, and throughout the Library in general. The nine foot bronze statue Flame of Hope by the main entrance and the stained glass Genesis on the third floor were done by Neirman. Both of which were acquired by the Library in 1987. These monumental pieces can always be seen at the Library, but the retrospective will only be up until the end of December. I recommend coming out to see it- it is rare that we pull out almost all of Nierman's artwork, especially the 6 1/2 foot by 8 foot tapestry. Now that was a unique challenge to hang!

Please enjoy the poorly pieced together panorama of the show below:

A Photo History of the UCF Library

Exhibit mock-up on graph paper - one square to every six inches.

I've recently co-curated the Special Collections and University Archives exhibit A Photo History of the UCF Library which I installed this past Friday. As with all the exhibits I've done with SC&UA, it was immensely interesting and consuming. The library is the first academic building on campus and one of the only buildings ready for classes in 1968, which meant the library housed many random university needs including weightlifting as well as books. This exhibit is in preparation of UCF's 50th anniversary and is installed on the 72 ft. art wall at the main entrance. It's a step up, in size and exposure, from the exhibit area we have right outside of the department. I don't usually make such an extensive plan for an exhibit (pictured above) but since we only had one day to set it up I wanted to make sure we had all our ducks in a row beforehand. I've grown quite fond of my graph paper mock-up. The only significant difference from the plan and the actual is the absence of the groundbreaking shovel and Nierman's maquette of the Flame of Hope. The exhibit would have been approximately 10% cooler with their inclusion, but we also didn't want anyone walking out with them since it is so close to the entrance.

I haven't been lurking around the wall since I've put it up, honestly I haven't, but already I've seen a group men looking at photos from the 1981-1984 expansion and pointing out all their old buddies. I hope this exhibit is causing that kind of reminiscing even when I'm not creeping around the corner.

Exhibit will be up June 1 - July 31