CDS Meet-Up Group Will Discuss What to Look for In a DSLR, Monday, June 3
A discussion about DSLR equipment, free and open to the public, will be led by camera expert Richard Lucic. A presentation on “What to Look for When Buying a DSLR with Still and Video Capabilities” will include information on a range of DSLRs and how to identify the specifications and capabilities most suited to your work. [...]
One-Night Only Screening of Acclaimed “Granny’s Got Game” in Raleigh, NC, May 20
First-time filmmaker Angela Alford has been garnering lots of praise (ESPN.com and Huffington Post, among many other admirers) for the documentary that she started as her final project in our Certificate in Documentary Arts program. Granny’s Got Game follows a senior women’s basketball team in North Carolina—seven fiercely competitive women in their seventies who battle physical limitations and skepticism to keep [...]
“Hidden in Plain Sight”: Jack Anderson’s Nighttime Photos Explore Neglected Historical Sites in Durham
Photographer MJ Sharp, a Center for Documentary Studies instructor, did an independent study with undergraduate student Jack Anderson that culminated in his exhibition of nighttime black-and-white photographs, Hidden in Plain Sight: Architectural Reminders of Durham’s Vital Past. Sharp explores the world at night in her work, as does Anderson. “We talk like two old crusty sailors [...]
Edward Ranney Presents a Life in Photography, Tuesday, May 7
Internationally renowned photographer Edward Ranney will be on the Duke campus to give a presentation on his forty-plus-years work documenting natural and man-altered landscapes; the talk is free and open to the public. His work of the 1970s in the southern Andes of Peru resulted in the book Monuments of the Incas (1982), which was reprinted in an [...]
“One Place” Exhibit Includes Installation of Photographer Paul Kwilecki’s Office
Exhibitions director Courtney Reid-Eaton describes the installation that’s part of an exhibit on view at the Center for Documentary Studies through July 27, 2013—One Place: Paul Kwilecki and Four Decades of Photographs from Decatur County, Georgia. The exhibit features selected photographs from a book of the same name edited by CDS director Tom Rankin and [...]
“Gullah Geechee Gala” Celebrates New Partnership with Historic African American Community
Duke University is hosting a kickoff gala for a new summer program that will send young scholars from the Carolinas—including fourteen Duke students—to live and work with Gullah Geechee community groups in Conway, South Carolina, on projects ranging from cultural history to education, public policy, and health. The program is a collaboration between Duke University’s Benjamin [...]
Performance by Grammy Nominee Tift Merritt at World Voice Day Event, April 16
The Duke Voice Care Center will celebrate World Voice Day 2013 with a special event, cohosted by the Center for Documentary Studies, featuring singer-songwriter Tift Merritt, recipient of Duke Voice Care Center’s Patrick D. Kenan Award for Vocal Health and Wellness. April 16 marks a worldwide annual event devoted to the phenomenon of voice and its importance [...]
MFA Thesis Exhibition Events Continue at Venues in Durham
Less than two years ago, Duke University welcomed fifteen students into the newly launched MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts program. Works by the graduating Class of 2013—ranging from installation and performance to film and photography—are featured in the MFA’s inaugural thesis exhibition, MFA|EDA 2013. The series of screenings, openings, and presentations that comprise the [...]
Free Screening: Award-Winning “Habibi” Closes Ethics Film Series on April 8
A tragic romance from Lebanese American writer, director, and producer Susan Youssef (named one of Filmmaker magazine’s “25 New Faces” to watch) is the final offering in the annual Ethics Film Series at Duke University (see all trailers below). Habibi is Youssef’s widely acclaimed fiction feature that tells a story of forbidden love between two students in the West Bank [...]
3D Film Events, including a Free Screening of Wim Wenders’s Acclaimed “Pina”
Duke University has organized two upcoming events in a Thinking Cinematics series on 3D cinema aesthetics: On March 22 Barbara Klinger, president-elect of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and professor in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University-Bloomington, will give a talk on 3D aesthetics: “Beyond Cheap Thrills: Space & Style in [...]
Second Annual Alice Fest Celebrates Women Filmmakers; Seating Limited, Register Now
In recognition of Women’s History Month, the Center for Documentary Studies, in partnership with the Southern Documentary Fund, presents the second annual Alice Fest, a film festival that showcases curated and submitted work by women with a special emphasis on women’s history and achievements. Alice Fest screens short docs, experimental films, documentary works-in-progress, and multimedia projects. Doors [...]
Filmmaker Chris Jordan Will Give Conference Keynote and Present Sneak Peek of Feature Doc-in-Progress
Renowned photographic artist, cultural/environmental activist, and filmmaker Chris Jordan will be the keynote speaker at an upcoming conference on the Duke University campus. “Across the Threshold: Creativity, Being, & Healing” (February 28–March 3) is an interdisciplinary conference of artists, scientists, spiritual activists, healers, and academicians focused this year on personal, social, and environmental transformation. Jordan, who [...]
“Souls of Zen: Buddhism, Ancestors, and the 2011 Tsunami in Japan”: Free Screening February 27
The Duke Screen/Society‘s Cine-East Film Series presents a free screening of a documentary that explores perspectives on Buddhism in the midst of Japan’s recovery from the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters. Souls of Zen: Buddhism, Ancestors, and the 2011 Tsunami in Japan will be introduced by Professor Levi McLaughlin of North Carolina [...]
Get Input on Your Doc Project at the CDS Meet Up Group Mastermind Session, February 25
The CDS Meet Up Group, organized and run on a volunteer basis, provides a monthly forum for students at the Center for Documentary Studies and others doing documentary work to network, talk shop, and learn. The next meeting will be the first ever Mastermind Session: Each media maker (writer, photographer, audiophile, filmmaker, etc.) is invited to present his or [...]
Fresh Docs Screening Features TV Series “Chef and the Farmer,” February 22
Fresh Docs is a works-in-progress film series presented by the Center for Documentary Studies and the Southern Documentary Fund. The idea is to watch these not-quite-finished documentaries as a community, and then give constructive feedback to the filmmakers. Next up in the series is Chef and the Farmer (working title), an authentically southern TV series still in production. [...]
LaToya Ruby Frazier’s “Campaign for Braddock Hospital” on View at CDS
Rising star LaToya Ruby Frazier began to photograph herself and her family as a teenager. Now 31, her recent work extends that intimate circle to include her hometown, Braddock, Pennsylvania, which was decimated by the collapse of the American steel industry in the 1970s. The struggle for economic opportunity and access to health care by Braddock’s [...]
LaToya Ruby Frazier: Photographer Will Give Artist’s Talk at CDS on February 12
Fast-rising star LaToya Ruby Frazier will give an artist’s talk at the Center for Documentary Studies on Tuesday, February 12, during her residency at Duke University’s MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts program. The photographer and media artist’s work has been generating considerable buzz, particularly since the 2012 Whitney Biennial, where she debuted a series [...]
CDS Exhibit Features Gordon Parks’s Segregation Series, “The Restraints: Open and Hidden”
The Restraints: Open and Hidden is an exhibition of work by iconic photographer Gordon Parks—a color photo essay of the same name that appeared in Life magazine in 1956. The piece sought to show the magazine’s (largely white) audience that black people, even those living under segregation, lived full, rich, ordinary lives. The Restraints will be on view [...]
Exhibitions at Meredith College and SUNY-Geneseo Feature Photographs by CDS Instructor Christopher Sims
Center for Documentary Studies instructor Christopher Sims has been invited to show work in two photography exhibitions that open in late January 2013: Connections: Artists Invited by Meredith College Art Faculty Frankie G. Weems Gallery, Gaddy-Hamrick Art Center Meredith College 3800 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, North Carolina January 24–March 31, 2013 Opening Reception: Thursday, January 24, 4–6 [...]
Free Screening: Oscar Nominated “How to Survive a Plague” Concludes Full Frame Winter Series, January 24
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival‘s annual series of wintertime screenings showcases three films that were shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature for the 2013 Academy Awards (Searching for Sugar Man and How to Survive a Plague were nominated on January 10). The Full Frame Winter Series screenings are free and open to the public; all begin at 7:30 p.m. [...]
Exhibit Opening January 9: “Mexican Music: The Ties That Bind,” Photographs and Audio Recordings by Chris Vail
An exhibit opening on the Duke University campus showcases a recent project by documentary and news photographer Chris Vail, a past visiting artist at the Center for Documentary Studies. Vail has been documenting the regional cultures of Mexico as defined by various forms of son, a genre of traditional Mexican music that is thriving in some regions [...]
Take Five: “Professor Diablo” Returns for Border Crossing on Tuesday, January 22
After four successful shows in 2012, Professor Diablo’s True Revue kicks off 2013 with a show that explores, through documentary performance, the nature, use, and meaning of borders—national, cultural, artistic, and personal. With this showcase of musicians, dancers, and writers, the latest version of Professor Diablo will cross borders with impunity and without fear, from Mexico to Siler [...]
“The Jazz Loft Project” Exhibition Opens at the Center for Creative Photography
The Jazz Loft Project: W. Eugene Smith in New York City, 1957-1965, an award-winning multimedia exhibition of photographs, videos, and recordings of some of the jazz world’s greatest musicians and underground jam session artists, will be presented at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson from Friday, December 14, 2012, through Sunday, [...]
Book Event for “Imaging Disaster” by Gennifer Weisenfeld, Tuesday, December 4
Gennifer Weisenfeld will give a presentation on her new book, Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923, followed by a reception and book signing. Focusing on one landmark catastrophic event in the history of an emerging modern nation—the Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated Tokyo and surrounding areas in 1923, claiming more than [...]
