Fall 2025 Presentation: UC Berkeley Undergraduate Research at the Magnes
Dec 7 @ 11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Join the dynamic team of UC Berkeley students enrolled in the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program with Achinoam Aldbouby, Associate Curator of the Magnes, as they share highlights from their semester-long curatorial projects: Contextualizing Roman Vishniac’s Photography Archive and the Jewish Timeline Exhibition Research Project.
Sunday, December 7, 2025 | 11:00 am – 12:30 pm
In person at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA
RSVP
If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at magnes@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 643-2526 with as much advance notice as possible.
FALL 2025 STUDENT RESEARCH TOPICS:
Contextualizing Roman Vishniac’s Photography Archive
Undergraduate students researched photographs in the Roman Vishniac Archive—offering insight into their process, the questions that guided them, and the stories revealed through selected images. Through close study of digitized negatives from the Magnes Collection, students identified visual patterns, organized images into thematic series, and uncovered stories behind the people, places, and moments Vishniac documented. This presentation will offer a peek behind the scenes of museum research and a fresh look at Vishniac’s photography.
Research Apprentices: Jocelyn Islas, Milka Grenier, Lily Grodzins, Spencer Browning, and Abigail Zolla.
Jewish Timeline Exhibition Research Project
UC Berkeley students have navigated the Magnes database, exploring a timeline of key events in Jewish history to investigate how material culture shapes our collective memory. Moving from a broad search of thousands of items down to a carefully curated selection, students engaged in a “social optics” research process—analyzing how we choose objects to represent history and how those choices resonate with modern audiences.
In this public presentation, students will showcase specific case studies, sharing the historical context of specific events in Jewish history; object analysis including the provenance, usage, and significance of items found within the collection; and a look at the challenges and considerations involved in selecting these objects for public display.
Research Apprentices: Audrey Wang Smietana, Dena Aryeh, Sherif Elsakkar, Gregory Lamont Ewing, and Alex Fiman.
The Magnes’s programs and exhibitions are supported by our community. Click here to make a donation to help support student programs like this.
