Picture File Collection

This exhibit, currated by Pratt students, alumni, and Adjunct Associate Professor Peter Kayafas looks at images from NYPL's picture collection. The exhibit challenges viewers to examine how we define images, how we react to these definitions, and the role(s) pictures play in our culture. 

Pratt's Picture File Collection is a rich resource for critically examining the changing of presentation, context, content, and categorization of photograph and print materials. 

Projects similar to Taryn Simon's The Picture Collection could easily be undertaken.

Simon examined the New York Public Library’s Picture File Collection and created the installation: The Picture Collection.  The installation examines how images are organized and categorized and how the organization and categorization of images changes over time. There is also an emphasis on the impulse to archive and organize visual information.