Canadian artist Jeff Wall takes exception when his photographs are described as staged; instead, he prefers to call them reconstructions - of events, memories and flashes of imagination.

The artists on staff at RayKo Photo Center devote a good deal of their time to mounting, printing and aiding the work of other photographers, but this weekend, Johanna Case-Hofmeister, Mary Celojko, Letty Garcia, Ann Jastrab, Mia Nakano, Kira Sugarman and Barry Umstead will step forward and have a much-deserved moment in the sun.

Forty years ago, anthropologist and Yiddish folklorist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett found an intriguing project close to home. She began a series of conversations with her aging, Polish immigrant father, Mayer Kirshenblatt, a project which evolved into a full-blown oral history about the lost Polish town of his youth, accompanied by a series of paintings and drawings. Now 91 and living in Toronto, Mayer has produced 270 paintings since 1990, 65 of which are on display at the Judah L. Magnes Museum.