Today’s post was written by library student assistant, Brianna Hirami-Vermeer, MA ’23.
As an English major at Loyola Marymount University, my work was highly intertwined with, and dependent on, the William H. Hannon Library’s resources. As both an undergraduate and graduate student at LMU, I visited the archives and special collections (ASC) multiple times, and I got the privilege of having close encounters with historical objects that I could have never imagined existing on campus. It is through these encounters that I began to wonder more about ASC and I wanted to see how I could become more involved. The English graduate program informed me that the library actually offers a graduate assistantship where the selected graduate student curates their own exhibit in the Terrance L. Mahan, S.J. gallery. I knew that this was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up on, so I applied and got accepted to lead my own exhibit for the fall 2023 semester.
The journey of my graduate assistantship started in the fall semester of 2022. With my ASC supervisor’s guidance, I began to develop my idea for an exhibition theme. My undergraduate major taught me that we’re always seeking an analysis or a “deeper meaning” when we examine artifacts, books, or honestly anything, for the first time. Ironically enough, I had no desire to dedicate my exhibit to books. In fact, I wanted to do the exact opposite, and show how non-book objects, with little to no text, can still speak to an audience. I felt that focusing on books and words might limit a person’s first impression of an object and could act as a barrier between the audience and the whole message. In order to read the contents of a book, one must know the language in which it was written. Without narrowing the encounter to a single language, I wanted my audience to “feel” understanding that could then transcend into further curiosity. My own exhibit labels, of course, are made of text but I wanted these to act only as guides to explain briefly what my selected objects are and why I felt they are significant to the meaning that I am trying to express to my audience: universal human experience. The rest I wanted to leave to the exhibit visitor’s own thoughts, questions, and conclusions.
With so much adversity in the world, throughout history and in our present times, I feel we are surrounded by messaging that divides humankind. We humans tend to focus on our differences, rather than our similarities, which is arguably our tragic flaw. There are misunderstandings, hatred, othering, prejudice, and the list can go on and on. I feel like, as an English major, we read so many stories about people despising each other. Whether that devaluation is brought about through differences of religion, class, race, gender, sexuality, or political affiliation, I felt disheartened to hear of so many cases of hate and intolerance of other people. I wanted to make an exhibit that enacted some hope. I wanted to see that we were not so different from each other after all. I was hoping to find objects that might help me see shared experiences with stories, history, traditions, and cultural values so that we could get in touch with human universality.
With these emotions and thoughts in mind I tried to find objects that I felt told a common story without words. I explored the many special collections within the library, I visited LMU’s vast Archaeology Center in University Hall, I attended an immense international antiquarian bookfair, and I consulted with professors who all presented objects that I feel resonated with my message. I feel immensely grateful for all the opportunities I experienced that made this exhibit possible.
In the accompanying image, I am photographed with a couple of the objects you can see in my exhibition, “Connection”: a late 19th century or early 20th century Chinese traveling tea set and a late 18th century Persian lady’s mirror. Both of these objects were acquired by the library during the year of my graduate assistantship, in part to support my exhibition theme and also because the library is growing its special collections in a way that broadens the diversity of cultural voices. I am glad my exhibition work helped to support the library’s DEI objectives. I’ve included these beautiful artifacts, respectively, in my categories “The Community that Food Creates” and “Identifying Status.” Other areas of human experience that my exhibit touches upon are “Remembering Those Who Have Passed On”, “Retelling Our Stories”, “Religion” and “Documenting Our Life Experience.” Most of the objects on display are from the library’s special collections. We also have on loan several ancient objects from the Archaeology Center and several artifacts from the private collection of Sina Zare (College of Business Administration).
From the objects you see on display in “Connection,” I hope that exhibition visitors will feel how we all, despite different cultural upbringings, are connected to each other. The universality of human beings may become easier to understand when we think about the objects we have created that express who we are and what is important to us. I hope you will visit the gallery and perhaps fall in love with some of the wonderful objects on display there!
My exhibit, in the Terrance L. Mahan, S.J. gallery (library level 3), runs through the end of finals week on Dec. 15, 2023.
Thank you to the following: the graduate program of LMU’s Department of English; the library’s archives and special collections team; Caroline Sauvage, director of LMU’s Archaeology Center (Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts); and Sina Zare, assistant professor of information systems and business analytics (College of Business Administration).
You must be logged in to post a comment.