New photo exhibit explores Lesley's 100-year evolution
April 9, 2009
This article was written by Jennifer Zanolli, Lesley College ‘09
Lesley School Dining Room, circa 1940
Lesley University has a long history of stressing the importance of education and discovery.
Continuing and adding to that tradition, the Lesley University archives on April 8 will present Lesley University: Now and Then, a limited run photography exhibit. The show, which allows visitors to visually examine early Lesley and Art Institute of Boston (AIB) history juxtaposed with current photographs, runs until May 18 on the fist floor of the McKenna Student Center.
Edith Lesley Wolfard, founder of Lesley University, wrote in the 1937 Lesleyan Yearbook that “This world has a great deal to offer; there is beauty and happiness; there are treasures all around us, but they do not come to us; we must discover them for ourselves and sometimes the joy of discovery is very great.”
White Hall Cafeteria, 2009
Jennifer Zanolli, a senior at Lesley College majoring in not-for-profit management with a minor in history, curated the exhibit as part of her internship at the Lesley University Archives. While this project only represents one segment of her responsibilities in the Archives, she feels that it has been the most personally rewarding aspect of her internship.
“I love history and enjoy making it accessible to a large group of people,” Zanolli said. “When I first entered the Lesley University Archives, I was fascinated with learning about and seeing the history of the institution that has been my home for the past four years. I wanted to provide that same experience to other students and alumni.”
It was with this aspiration that Zanolli created the exhibit, which provides the opportunity to view and compare Lesley’s social, academic, and architectural history to the present.
The research and design stages of this exhibit were started last November at a meeting between Alyssa Pacy, the University’s archivist, and Zanolli.
“After discussing with Alyssa my desire to curate an exhibit, we both agreed, almost immediately, that the concept should have a compare and contrast theme,” Zanolli said.
The original objective of the exhibit was to highlight Lesley University’s past in an interesting and relatable way and to provoke historical comparisons between the past and present. After establishing the theme and overall objective, the next step was to select the photos that would be displayed. Zanolli was responsible for selecting only five “before” pictures to be displayed out of thousands. The task, she said, was both enjoyable and challenging.
“It was really difficult,” stated Zanolli, “because I started to get emotionally attached to several different photographs. However, I eventually narrowed it down based on what I believed best displayed Lesley’s past.”
For preservation purposes, the images that will be on display are reproductions. This is to help minimize the natural wear and tear that happens to photographs when they are displayed. The last stage of the designing process was for Zanolli to explore Lesley University’s different campuses and photograph current people and places. Those recently photographed images will accompany the archives’ “before” pictures to complete the Now and Then exhibit.