“Stories from Stagville”: Exhibit Features Collaborative Work by Durham 5th Graders and Duke Undergrads
A new exhibit on the Duke University campus showcases work made by fifth-grade students in Lisa Lord’s classroom at Club Boulevard Humanities Magnet School in Durham, North Carolina, based on their yearlong study of Historic Stagville, which contains the remnants of one of the South’s largest pre-Civil War plantations. The fifth graders worked with Duke undergraduates [...]
Audio Documentary Listening Party: Students to Present a Selection of Works, April 29
The general public is enthusiastically invited to this presentation in the new Power Plant building by undergraduate and graduate students in the Short Audio Documentary class taught by Center for Documentary Studies audio director John Biewen. The students will present a selection of works produced during the spring semester. The short audio documentaries will be [...]
Certificate in Documentary Studies Project Presentations and Exhibit: “Beyond the Front Porch 2013″
Eight graduating seniors who are completing the Certificate in Documentary Studies at Duke University will present their final projects to the public in an open house celebration at the Center for Documentary Studies: David Chou, Michaela Dwyer, Melanie Houston, Alice Kim, Haley Read, Hannah Scott, Sarah Van Name, and Katie Vo. An exhibit of the students’ work, [...]
CDS Undergraduates Create Videos for National Farmworker Awareness Week 2013
Working in collaboration with Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) and other farmworker organizations nationwide, ten undergraduate students at CDS have created a series of short videos to be used as part of the media campaign for the 14th annual National Farmworker Awareness Week, to be held March 24-31, 2013. The students are enrolled in DOCST 332S “Farmworkers [...]
Interview with Photographer Harlan Erskine
CDS undergraduate student Charles Jo conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2012 Although your projects vary considerably in style, theme, and subject matter, it seems that a somber, almost ominous, tone pervades them all. Would you agree? If so, what attracts you to photographing these types [...]
Interview with Photographer Donna Wan
CDS undergraduate student Courtney McDaniel conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2012. Your project In the Landscape does not include an artist statement. Can you elaborate on your choice of location and composition? There is an artist statement for this project. However, at the time that [...]
Interview with Photographer Kerry Mansfield
CDS undergraduate student Danielle Duhl conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2012. You speak a lot about the sense of space in your photographs. What draws you to the topics of spaces, and more specifically, the spaces that lie between? I’ve never been one to photograph people (self portrait [...]
Interview with Photographer Samantha VanDeman
CDS undergraduate student Kara Wilson conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2012. What was your motivation for creating a portfolio with a hotel theme? Did you have a particular traveling experience that led to the desire to create a portfolio on hotels? Before I started photographing [...]
Interview with Photographer Santiago Vanegas
CDS undergraduate student Ryan Schott conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2012. What were some difficulties of taking photographs in Antarctica? Difficulties beyond the obvious cold weather, staying dry, not dying in 80+ mph wind and 50ft+ waves, sea sickness…. One constant difficulty was its overwhelming [...]
Interview with Photographer Dimitri Mellos
CDS undergraduate student Jackson Conway conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2012. What does your process of finding suitable material to photograph consist of as a street photographer? Well, as far as I am concerned the essence of photography (and even more so street photography) is [...]
Interview with Photographer Charlotte Niel
CDS undergraduate student Devon Edwards conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2012. Your project Body Options deals with women’s issues of image and beauty. Can you explain why you made the choice to do this project? As a woman, I have always been concerned about how the media [...]
Interview with Photographer Isa Leshko
CDS undergraduate student Jesse Dembo conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2012. In your artist statement on Elderly Animals you state that you “began this series shortly after [you] had spent a year in New Jersey helping to take care of [y]our mom who has Alzheimer’s [...]
Interview with Photographer Brandon Thibodeaux
CDS undergraduate student Mariesha McAdoo conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2012. When you travelled to the Mississippi Delta in summer of 2009, was When Morning Comes a preconceived project or did the collection develop spontaneously over the duration of the trip? My first trip to [...]
Interview with Photographer Alejandro Cartagena
CDS undergraduate student Stella Belonwu conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2012. What inspired your latest project Car Poolers? What was your process? Many things inspired this project but it was especially interested in continuing an exploration of issues or unintended consequences stemming out of the [...]
Interview with Photographer Alyssa Miserendino
CDS undergraduate student Ray Song conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2012. Can you describe how your project Our World InsideOut draws from your own childhood experiences? Our World Insideout (OWI) came about from my undergraduate thesis actually, InsideOut. At the time, my father had disappeared and [...]
Watch: Students Produce “Forward Together, Not One Step Back,” a Voter Advocacy Video
Duke University undergraduates in this past spring’s Documentary Studies: Video for Social Change course produced a short video in association with Democracy NC highlighting the growing nationwide trend of potentially restrictive voting laws. (The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice estimates that the new laws “could make it significantly harder for as many as five million eligible Americans to [...]
Listen: Student Work from the Short Audio Documentary Class Is Available Online
Thirty-six audio pieces from undergraduate students in this spring’s Short Audio Documentary course, taught by CDS audio program director John Biewen, are now available online. Each student produced four short docs during the semester; for the spring 2012 class, the themes of the pieces are: Identity: A theme agreed upon by the class for their [...]
“Beyond the Front Porch 2012″ Opens at CDS Monday, May 7
Nineteen graduating seniors who have completed the Certificate in Documentary Studies at Duke University will showcase their final projects in Beyond the Front Porch 2012, an exhibit opening at the Center for Documentary Studies on May 7. At an open house celebration at CDS on April 29, the students presented their projects and received their certificates. [...]
Documentary Studies Students Unveil Video and Photography Projects, Friday, April 27
In two separate events, both free and open to the public, documentary studies undergraduate students from Duke and UNC–Chapel Hill will present individual and class projects. Democracy Under Assault: Voting Rights in North Carolina, a short documentary produced by Duke and UNC–Chapel Hill students in the documentary studies class Video for Social Change, will screen [...]
Watch: CDS Students Produce Video Series on Farmworker Conditions and Child Labor
Undergraduates in CDS Artist in Residence Bruce Orenstein’s Documentary Studies: Video for Social Change class have produced a series of advocacy videos touching on the conditions of farmworkers in North Carolina and child labor in the agricultural industry. The course is being taught in collaboration with Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF); SAF, NC Children in [...]
“The Wonders of Watts” Website Launched
Students from the Center for Documentary Studies spent fall semester 2011 documenting life at the George Watts Elementary School in Durham. As part of the CDS class, Digital Documentary Photo: Capturing Transience, taught by Susie Post-Rust, each Duke or UNC-Chapel Hill undergraduate focused on one subject, choosing a person, a class, or an idea—the nutrition program [...]
Apply Now: March 1 Deadline for 2012 John Hope Franklin Student Documentary Awards
This year marks the twenty-second anniversary of the John Hope Franklin Student Documentary Awards. The awards are named for the noted scholar John Hope Franklin, the late professor emeritus of history at Duke University, in recognition of his lifetime accomplishments and his dedication to students and teaching. CDS makes these awards to undergraduates attending Triangle-area [...]
Videos Available, Press “Play”: Duke Students Film Big Boi and MSTRKRFT at the Yorktown Throwdown
Last fall, Center for Documentary Studies film instructor Gary Hawkins and Emily LaDue, production coordinator at Duke’s program in the Arts of the Moving Image, took a vanload of current and former Duke film-production students to the Yorktown Throwdown in Charleston, South Carolina. The mission: to film Big Boi and dance-electronic duo MSTRKRFT at the [...]
CDS Undergraduate Class Debuts Photos and Multimedia Slideshows of Elementary-School Life, Monday, December 12
Students from the Center for Documentary Studies who spent the fall semester documenting life at the George Watts Elementary School in Durham will display their multimedia slideshows and photos on Monday, December 12. The event is free and open to the public. Students will be on hand to talk about their experiences at the school, [...]
