Imagine walking into a miniature palace with charcoal floors, a matching brick ceiling and a white wall filled with photographs of friends, family and life.

Enter the Nevada Museum of Art's Nosotros por Nosotros: Latinos in Nevada Tell Their History exhibit. The exhibit started Sept. 29 and will continue until Oct. 28 in the Wayne and Miriam Prim Theater Gallery. Admission is free.

"It gives the rest of the community a window into their (Latinos) lives," said Emma Sepulveda about the exhibit. "It builds a bridge and helps the Latino and Anglo communities understand each other."

Sepulveda is the founder of the project and the associate professor of foreign languages and literatures and well as the director of the Latino Research Center at the University of Nevada, Reno.

She distributed 500 cameras to the Hispanic community in all parts of Nevada and asked them to take pictures of themselves, friends and family. The cameras were given to Nevada students, children, adults and the elderly in Las Vegas, Reno and rural areas in Nevada.

The University helped fund the purchasing of the disposable cameras distributed.

"We wanted (to display) a rainbow of what Latinos are in Nevada," Sepulveda said with wide eyes.
 
Sepulveda said she was intrigued by the idea when she came across similar projects in Chile and on the border between America and Mexico.

"I was inspired by other photographers' projects," she said.

The exhibit is a traveling one, meaning there is less than 25 percent of the photos displayed in the Nevada Museum of Art.

Currently, there are also exhibits in Las Vegas and rural schools and museums in Nevada.

Sepulveda hopes to create a book and a CD when the exhibits are concluded. The media will include choice pictures chosen by a committee with comments about the people who took the photos.

"We hope to get it (the book) distributed by the end of the year," she said.

The book will be sold in bookstores and the Latino Research Center at the University. A copy will also be donated to every library in Nevada so that it will be easily accessible to the public.