This writing assignment asks you to curate a virtual mini exhibition of nineteenth-century photographs. The following steps will guide you through the process.
- Choose a broad theme for the exhibition from among the ten rubrics on the syllabus. (example: Exploration, Survey, and Landscape Photography)
- Develop an argument about a particular facet of this broad theme that you find interesting. (example: how different photographers in the American West represented the problem of environmental destruction)
- Identify, examine, and research three photographs made before 1914, with which you can make your argument convincingly.
- Write an introduction to your exhibition, in which you describe the above elements, providing the ‘visitor’ to your exhibit an overview of the interpretation that you are putting forward, and an explanation of how the images you’ve chosen support—or challenge—the claims you are asserting.
- Write three separate “wall labels” on your chosen photographs, highlighting the formal features of each, and quickly moving to demonstrate how those particular features support your argument, and fit into the broader theme that you have chosen to explore.
Sample Solution
