Past Exhibitions

Women in fashionable, frequently outrageous hats are integral to the pageantry of a day at the races. Around the world, fanciful hats appear on women attending the races at Royal Ascot, the Kentucky Derby, and, of course, Del Mar. Since the 19th century such elaborate headwear has been tied to a "see and be seen" attitude. Hats for the races are designed to make the wearer stand out in a crowd. The race season was, and remains, the brief moment when extravagance and exuberance is perfectly acceptable and to be a show-off is to be at the height of elegance.

With the use of personal photographs, Faces of San Diego 2000 connected the personal history of San Diegans to our community, our nation and ultimately our world by including images of our ancestors from nearly every continent on earth. Drawn from the 1860s through 1999, this exhibit included photographs of our lives, our livelihood and our lively pursuits. Responding with great enthusiasm, thousands of San Diegans culled through their old photo albums and found images that they felt represented their family, their life, and their origins. As Colleen M. O’Connor, the founder of this project, has written, “the purpose of Faces of San Diego 2000 is to bring history alive, to preserve photographs, and to motivate San Diegans to rescue their family history.”