DOING AMERICANA

Doing Americana: Photography, Mythology, and the American Dream is a collaborative exhibition by a mixed undergraduate and graduate class of 2025. The show peels back layers of the American myth "good life" through its close look at an oil company's multinational photographic series. Drawing from the University of Louisville Photographic Archives’ extensive Standard Oil (New Jersey) and Fine Print Collections, the show evaluates how the photographic medium shape American ideals of nationhood, domesticity, labor, and freedom. In the images presented, nostalgia and patriotism collide to paint an outwardly harmonious picture of the American Dream, subtly smoothing over the cracks and empty promises of a dream few Americans are able to fully achieve.