The Art of Costume Design

This exhibit is a celebration of the life's work of Emmy Award winning designer, Dunya Ramicova. The works in this exhibit are selected from materials that span the entirety of her career. The genesis of this exhibit began with the gifting of Ramicova's oeuvre to the UC Merced Library. Alongside the digitization project, this exhibit is the material showcase to accompany the virtual collection.

UC Merced Librarian Jerrold Shiroma worked with Ramicova in the selection of items for the exhibit, and their visual display. In making their selections, they attempted to choose productions, and illustrations, that provided the best examples of the incredible range and diversity of her artistic output.

It was decided that an accompnaying website was also needed to provide additional contextual information. This website also includes personal narratives by Ramicova detailing her involvement with various productions, as well as photos from the live performances. The QR Code attached to every title card in the exhibit is linked to that production's corresponding webpage.

In the Spring of 2014, the UC Merced Library began the process of receiving as a gift the costume designs of Dunya Ramicova. Later that year, the Library began the process of digitizing, archiving, and preserving these costume designs. At the time of this exhibit's opening, some 2,000 illustrations have been digitized (comprising the entirety of the artist's oeuvre), with just over 1,000 of them available for view via the California Digital Library's Calisphere project. The remaining illustrations are currently being prepared for inclusion in Calisphere.

By including these images in a project like Calisphere, the UC Merced Library is able to take advantage of not only Calisphere's inherent Digital Assets Management System (DAMS), but also other digital preservation technologies provided by the California Digital Library. These technologies perform the tasks of not only providing wide-scale public access to the digital versions of these illustrations, but also ensure the long-term health of the digital files.

When completed, this collection will stand as one of the very few digital collections [oeuvres] of costume designs by a single creator anywhere.

The digital collection can be viewed here.