This spring, Ephemera, a new art history journal, is set to release its first issue on campus. The journal will feature theoretical and historical essays, artist spotlights, exhibition overviews, student work and more, according to founder Chandini Peddana ’25.
Peddana, an art history and anthropology major, decided to start Ephemera in the spring of 2024 after noticing a lack of associated art history extracurriculars on campus, she said. Although Peddana had found professional opportunities in the arts, she felt that Dartmouth’s campus lacked a strong network of student-run clubs and organizations dedicated to the field — especially when compared to the abundance of opportunities focused on fields like business, consulting and finance, she explained.
Peddana hoped to fill the void with an arts-based extracurricular that could foster engagement among art history and non-art history students alike, she said.
“I started Ephemera as a way to create a bridge between creative minds on campus,” Peddana added.
While Ephemera’s first issue is slated for an early spring release, the journal’s precursor — a short-form zine created by a group of art history students from the Class of 2024 — was launched in winter 2024. According to Peddana, who was loosely involved with the initial zine, also called Ephemera, it focused specifically on Dartmouth’s art history classes, professors and students.
Peddana aims to expand the journal’s scope beyond the art history department to engage the greater student body.
“I feel like [Ephemera] could be a way for students who don’t know much about art — or who are intimidated by an art history class — to interact with art in a really low-stakes way, where it’s just students talking,” Peddana said.
Ephemera editor Ellie McLaughlin ’25 — who was personally contacted and encouraged to get involved by Peddana — also stressed the importance of connecting with students who have varying academic interests.
“It’s important to create a space where you can engage with art historical discourse and what student artists on campus are doing, but you don’t necessarily need to be a major and fully committed to [art],” McLaughlin said.
By the spring of 2024, Peddana had taken charge of the Ephemera zine and shaped it to meet her own vision as a student-run academic journal. Through the spring and fall of 2024, she recruited other students to assist.
“I reached out to the art history department, to students and to fellow majors — basically anyone I could think of who might want to get involved,” Peddana said.
Peddana ultimately attracted 10 students to join the club and found several mentors among the art history department faculty. She also secured funding from COSO to support the journal’s publication, events for attracting potential readers and editorial meetings. Ephemera is now recognized by the Council on Student Organizations and has gained access to the campus ListServ.
Peddana said she hopes she can leverage Ephemera’s COSO recognition to garner more visual and written submissions from students, as well as attract different types of readers.
“I think now that we have recognition, hopefully our scope will be able to expand.” Peddana said. “Just because you don’t study art, that doesn’t mean you can’t be interested in it.”
For the journal’s first issue, Peddana has collected a number of submissions to be split across five sections: critical and historical essays, reviews, artist spotlights, student art and “satirical commentary on how people interact with art in their daily lives.” She sourced submissions through personal outreach over text, emails to department heads and posters in Baker-Berry Library, the Black Family Visual Arts Center and Carpenter Hall.
Now that Ephemera is nearing its official release, Peddana is looking toward the future.
“I would love for Ephemera to become a quarterly publication instead of just an annual one,” she said. “Right now, our team is very upperclassman-heavy, so I would really love to get underclassmen involved because I do think it’s something that will have to be passed down.”
Ephemera editor Justin Lewis ’25 said he hopes the journal will make more students “impassioned” about “student artists.”
“It would be a really amazing thing to be able to say in five, 10, however long a year’s time, that revitalizing [student] culture through art and fostering [Dartmouth’s] community through this journal would be something I’d really be proud of,” Lewis said.
According to Peddana, Ephemera will ideally impart more than just an appreciation for art history but also a place for mentorship.
“Ephemera is not only a place for people to share their written and artistic works but a collaborative space where we nurture writers and artists and pair them with seniors to hone their skills and grow them,” she said.