CENTER FOR DOCUMENTARY STUDIES AT DUKE UNIVERSITY
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SUMMER 2010 Lange-Taylor Prize 20th Anniversary Winners First Book Prize in Photography William Eggleston to Judge 2010 Competition
John Hope Franklin Award Student Documentary Prizewinners
Exhibitions
On Exhibit Literacy Through Photography–Arusha, Tanzania
Certificate in Documentary Arts Spring 2010 Graduates and Projects
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Workshops
People EVENTS Friends of CDS
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summer 2010
Document
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a Publication of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University
919-660-3663 | Fax: 919-681-7600 | E-mail: docstudies@duke.edu | http://cds.aas.duke.edu CDS Director: Tom Rankin CDS Associate Director for Programs & Communications: Lynn McKnight Editors: Alexa Dilworth and Lauren Hart Designer: Bonnie Campbell Editorial Intern: Kendra McNair-Worley The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University teaches, engages in, and presents documentary work grounded in collaborative partnerships and extended fieldwork that uses photography, film/video, audio, and narrative writing to capture and convey contemporary memory, life, and culture. CDS values documentary work that balances community goals with individual artistic expression. CDS promotes documentary work that cultivates progressive change by amplifying voices, advancing human dignity, engendering respect among individuals, breaking down barriers to understanding, and illuminating social injustices. CDS conducts its work for local, regional, national, and international audiences. All photographs appearing in Document® are copyright by the artist. Document® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
COVER, top to bottom: 1) “Sometimes I will spread out the cash from a few days and just look at it and touch it. . . . I like working with cash because it is a much more direct tie to the physicality of labor and trade.” Washington, D.C., 2008. Photograph by Tiana Markova-Gold. 2) LTP-Arusha. Best Part of Me. Students made self-portraits highlighting their favorite physical features. 3) William Eggleston, Memphis, Tennessee, 2009. Photograph by Joanna Welborn. 4) Introduction to Photography instructor Ava Johnson reviews student work. Photograph by Maggie Smith.
contentscontentscontents LANGE-TAYLOR PRIZE 3 20th Anniversary Winners CDS/HONICKMAN FIRST BOOK PRIZE IN PHOTOGRAPHY 5 William Eggleston to Judge 2010 Competition JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN STUDENT DOCUMENTARY AWARDS 2010 Winners 5 PEOPLE 6 Gary Hawkins: One of Variety’s Top Ten Leaders in Learning Ed Pincus: Mud Season Wells Tower: Truth Out of Artifice EXHIBITIONS 8 Literacy Through Photography–Arusha, Tanzania Shared Origins: An Adoptive Family’s Journey Back to Ethiopia, Photographs by Elena Rue Jazz Loft Project Exhibit on Tour COURSES & WORKSHOPS 10 Continuing Education Certificate in Documentary Arts Graduates, Spring 2010 Undergraduate Education Highlights
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OTHER NEWS 11 Southern Circuit Film Screenings Document Now Available Online CDS on Facebook and Twitter FRIENDS OF CDS 11 CALENDAR 12
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Lange-Taylor Prize
2010 Winners: Tiana Markova-Gold and Sarah Dohrmann
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Honorable Mention awarded to Kitra Cahana and Chris Urquhart
he Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University has awarded the twentieth Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize to photographer Tiana Markova-Gold and writer Sarah Dohrmann, both Americans. The $20,000 award is given to encourage collaboration in documentary work in the tradition of acclaimed American photographer Dorothea Lange and writer and social scientist Paul Taylor. Lange and Taylor worked together for many years, most notably on fieldwork that resulted in American Exodus (1941), a seminal work in documentary studies. Tiana Markova-Gold and Sarah Dohrmann’s project, “If You Smoke Cigarettes in Public, You Are a Prostitute: Women and Prostitution in Morocco,” is an investigation of female prostitution in Morocco and the experiences of two American non-Muslim women documenting women’s lives in a country where pre-marital virginity is considered sacred. With their project, they “seek to dismantle Americans’ preconceived notions of the prostitute as sexual deviant and the hijabed women as ‘exotic’” and examine the negotiation of relationships “between the prostitute and the society she lives in, between the artist and the subject, between non-Muslim and Muslim women, between women.” Moroccan society greatly values “‘good’ women, which means maintaining virginity prior to marriage. In a country where men are traditionally the sole income providers, where there is no social security or welfare, where there is a 60 percent illiteracy rate and a 10 percent unemployment rate among women, a girl’s future, should she compromise her ‘purity’ before marriage, is decimated.” It is argued that many women who have lost their virginity prior to marriage “have but two choices: to become
a maid or a prostitute.” Markova-Gold and Dohrmann began working on “If You Smoke Cigarettes in Public You Are a Prostitute” in October 2008. Dohrmann had been living in Morocco for over a year and writing about her interactions with prostitutes. However, it wasn’t until Markova-Gold arrived in Morocco that the project was “fully realized.” The two spent a week with two young prostituted women, as well as investigated prostitution in local cafes and clubs. Markova-Gold and Dohrmann plan to spend three months in Morocco, “living with and documenting the lives of sex workers whose clients are not sex tourists, but are instead fellow Moroccan men.” They will focus on women in prostitution from different economic levels and backgrounds as they engage with them in their homes and in the hotels, clubs, cafes, and streets where they work. Of their collaboration, they say that together they “gain a different kind of access—one that allows for the cultivation of deep and nuanced relationships, resulting in a complex holistic story. By delving into the lives of
ABOVE: Babygirl with scratches she got fighting another woman while she was in prison. Hunts Point, South Bronx, New York, 2007. Photograph by Tiana Markova-Gold. RIGHT: “I love to read and the quiet pleasure of being able to curl up with a good book between clients or soak in the tub is one of the reasons I value my job so much.” Miami Beach, Florida, 2007. Photograph by Tiana MarkovaGold. OPPOSITE: Cell phone photograph by Tom Rankin.
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Moroccan women who are working as prostitutes, and by honestly and unflinchingly answering to [our] roles as documentarians, [we] hope to reveal greater human truths about sexuality, empowerment, and choices.” Tiana Markova-Gold is a freelance documentary photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism Program at the International Center of Photography in 2007, where she received a New York Times Scholarship. She has traveled extensively, most recently in Macedonia, Nigeria, and Brazil, documenting social issues with a particular focus on women and girls. Her photographs have been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, New York Photo Awards, PDN Photo Annual, American Photography, and the International Photography Awards. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Sasha Wolf Gallery; HOST gallery in London, England; and the Lumix Festival for Young Photojournalism in Hanover, Germany. She is a 2010 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Photography. Sarah Dohrmann was born and raised in Iowa, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York. She has a degree from the Graduate Writing Program in Fiction at Sarah Lawrence College, has been a writerin-residence with Teachers & Writers Collaborative since 2001, and has taught writing in Special Programs at Sarah Lawrence College since 2003. She was a 2007–08 Fulbright Fellow of the Arts in Morocco, where she lived for fifteen months, and a 2009 Fellow in Nonfiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Dohrmann was recently awarded a 2010 Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and she is a 2010 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Writing Fellow. Her essays, cultural criticism, and narrative nonfiction have appeared online and in print for Bad Idea (England), Teachers & Writers, and Bad Idea: The Anthology.
Honorable Mention An honorable mention was awarded to writer Chris Urquhart and photographer Kitra Cahana for their project “The Rainbow Kids,” an in-depth look at nomadic youth in North America.
Close-Up Meriem told me she became a prostitute because she lost her virginity. We were in my rental house in the old city of Asilah, a small coastal town in northern Morocco. I had just moved there from Fez where I’d studied Arabic for six months. I chose to live in Asilah because the words that people used to describe it were belle and tranquille. Meriem sat on my sofa and drank coffee with me. She was telling me her life story in Arabic. I stopped her occasionally in order to be sure I wasn’t hearing her wrong. Your childhood boyfriend raped you? I asked. I repeated her use of the word that I realized I was only assuming meant “rape.” She nodded “yes” while I looked the word up in my Moroccan Arabic–English dictionary. But the dictionary— reportedly the best that exists—is a truly pitiful resource that doesn’t deign to include such unsavory words as rape (it skips from rank to rapid). You can’t imagine, until you live in a new country and take on a new language and are rendered a dumb baby by it, just how much life—just how much of your life—is “unsavory” by others’ standards. I tried a different tack: You’re saying he forced you to have sex with him? She nodded, sipped her coffee. And then, strangely, she shook her head. No, she said, We were friends. I offered her one of my cigarettes, which she took. She got a phone call. She started arguing with the person on the other end, and then she started crying. She was saying, I want to live in Spain, Mama. I don’t want to live in Morocco anymore. I noticed she’d chewed her fingernails; I noticed her short hair was tamed down with five strategically-placed barrettes; I saw she had a bruise on her right knee. And then it occurred to me: how strange I could see her knees at all. It was as if, in that first half-hour with Meriem in my house, I forgot we were in Morocco and that she wasn’t “good” by Moroccan standards: she was drinking my coffee (in Fez someone had told me that good Moroccan girls drink tea, not coffee), she was smoking one of my cigarettes, she wasn’t veiled. She hadn’t even walked to my house with a djellaba over her outfit. It was Taha, a Moroccan friend I made in Asilah, who had introduced me to Meriem. I’d told him I was looking for a woman to tutor me in Moroccan Arabic. She’s a prostitute, but she’s very smart, Taha said. I wanted to tell him I doubted the two were mutually exclusive, but I didn’t know how to say “mutually exclusive” right. I said, instead, that I didn’t care what Meriem did to make her money outside of tutoring me. And anyway, it was her language I wanted to learn most—the kind not found in books. — Sarah Dohrmann, from “If You Smoke Cigarettes in Public You Are a Prostitute: Women and Prostitution in Morocco”
ABOVE: “I remember what a sweetheart this man was. It’s so unfortunate that the dynamics of power and gender would lead most people to assume something very different than what the energy actually was at that moment. . . .” Washington, D.C., 2008. Photograph by Tiana Markova-Gold. LEFT: Arianna Desjardin traveled for two months with strangers she met at a Rat Dog concert. “It just felt right to go traveling with people I didn’t even know.” Photograph by Kitra Cahana. OPPOSITE, left: William Eggleston, Memphis, Tennessee, 2009. Photograph by Joanna Welborn. OPPOSITE, right: Photograph by Alyssa Reichardt, 2009 John Hope Franklin Student Documentary Award winner.
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CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography William Eggleston to Judge 2010 Competition
The Center for Documentary Studies and The Honickman Foundation are pleased to announce that renowned color photographer William Eggleston will judge the 2010 CDS/ Honickman First Book Prize in Photography competition. William Eggleston’s groundbreaking reinvention of color photography in the 1970s established him as one of America’s most original and influential artists. His landmark solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, curated by John Szarkowski, and the companion book, William Eggleston’s Guide (1976), brought Eggleston international acclaim and established him as the “father of color photography.” Szarkowski wrote of the photographs, “As pictures . . . these seem to me perfect: irreducible surrogates for the experience they pretend to record, visual analogues for the quality of one life, collectively a paradigm of a private view, a view one would have thought ineffable, described here with clarity, fullness, and elegance.” Eggleston has been a lecturer in Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, a researcher in color video at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a recipient of awards and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Hasselblad Foundation, and PhotoEspaña. In 2004, he was awarded the Getty Images Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Center of Photography. He has also photographed on the sets of such filmmakers as John Huston, David Byrne, and Gus Van Sant, and he is the subject of Michael Almereyda’s documentary film William Eggleston in the Real World (2005). In 2008, the Whitney Museum of American Art, with Haus der Kunst in Munich, organized the retrospective exhibition William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961–2008. The biennial Center for Documentary Studies/ Honickman First Book Prize in Photography competition is open to American photographers of any age who have never published a book-length work and who use their cameras for creative exploration, whether it be of places, people, or communities; of the natural or social world; of beauty at large or the lack of it; of objective or subjective realities. The prize honors work that is visually compelling, that bears witness, and that has integrity of purpose. The winning photographer will receive a grant of $3,000, publication of a book of photography, and inclusion in a website devoted to presenting the work of winners of the prize. The judge also writes the introduction for the book, which is published by Duke University Press in association with CDS Books of the Center for Documentary Studies. Submisssions must be postmarked no later than September 8, 2010.
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John Hope Franklin Student Documentary Awards 2010 Winners Established in 1989 by the Center for Documentary Studies, the John Hope Franklin Student Documentary Awards are named for the noted scholar John Hope Franklin, 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 North Carolina’s Triangle-area universities to help them conduct summer-long documentary fieldwork projects. Student applicants should demonstrate an interest in documentary studies and possess the talent and skills necessary to conduct an intensive documentary project. These skills may include oral history, photography, film/ video, nonfiction or creative writing, audio, or active interest in community service programs. This year’s winners are: Priyanka Chaurasia (Duke) | Oral history/photography/multimedia: Bihar, India Despite a rich history, today “Bihar is the most corrupt, illiterate, and dangerous state in the entire country of India,” writes Priyanka Chaurasia. “It is also where my family is from.” Chaurasia is documenting “the life of the average Bihar family” and delving into “an identity deeper than illiteracy and corruption. I want to understand the beauty in Bihari culture and portray a different element of Bihar identity to Indians and the Western world.” Chaurasia is using a mixture of photography and audio interviews to profile several families or individuals in her documentary, presented in the form of a multimedia website. “This project is as much a personal endeavor as a political artistic piece; I hope to learn about my own culture and be proud of my roots.” Courtney Han (Duke) | Narrative and creative nonfiction: Sierra Leone Courtney Han is documenting Ahmed Muckson Sesay’s experiences in the West African country Sierra Leone, to show how individuals can help reunite and revive a wartorn nation. Muckson had a role in coordinating the first meeting among the revolutionary United Front, the U.N. Mission in Sierra Leone, and the West African peacekeeping force ECOMOG; he also created an orphanage for former child soldiers and founded a radio station for his community. Sierra Leoneans continue to face warrelated obstacles daily, and Han will explore how “postconflict” conditions affect village life. The final product will include a documentary account of Muckson Sesay’s story and a fiction supplement that captures challenges, opportunities, and contradictions as ordinary people try to cope and move on.
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Anna Mazhirov (Duke) | Creative nonfiction: Brighton Beach, New York Brighton Beach, on the southernmost edge of Brooklyn, is home to the largest Russian-speaking community in America. It is a unique immigrant neighborhood of mostly Soviet-born Jews, but also Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Turks, and Georgians. Anna Mazhirov, born in Odessa, Ukraine, notes that Brighton Beach is nicknamed Little Odessa, and she expects that “self-discovery will give depth” to her writing project. Over time the demographics of Brighton Beach have changed drastically, and Mazhirov is interested in what has stayed the same. She wants to focus on the movement of waves. “We, former-U.S.S.R. immigrants, identify ourselves with specific waves of immigration. I’m fascinated by the contrast of the ocean waves spreading out smoothly across the beach and the waves of transitioning people. Each wave of immigrants experiences a unique set of joys and obstacles.” Mazhirov plans to write a 20,000-word documentary piece. Andrea Patino Contreras (Duke) | Photography: Elmina and Cape Coast, Ghana The Elmina and Cape Coast castles, located on the coast of Ghana, are impressive buildings tied to the history of the Atlantic slave trade: both places were used to house African slaves before they were sent overseas. Nearby Kumasi, the country’s second-largest city, was once the center of the Ashanti Empire, influential in the slave trade in the eighteenth century; most of the Ashanti people, one of Ghana’s main ethnic groups, still live in the area. Elmina was the first European settlement in West Africa. Through photography and informal interviews, Andrea Patino Contreras is documenting these slavery forts and how they impact the two towns. “I want to explore how the history of slavery currently resonates at two levels in the Ghanaian context: physically and culturally. . . . What does it mean to have these two forts still present? Do they have any impact on the local dynamics? What do people—both locals and tourists—think of them?” Brittany Peterson (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) | Photography: Buenos Aires, Argentina Brittany Peterson is creating a portrait series on firstgeneration immigrants living in Buenos Aires. Argentina is a country largely defined by its immigrants. In the last few decades, immigrants have mostly arrived from neighboring countries. Many choose to go to Argentina because of its relative political stability, compared to other South American countries, and for the many opportunities available in a metropolis. Peterson will use portraits to analyze and showcase the diversity of the immigrants and their experiences in Argentina. Kaitlin Rogers (Duke) | Photography: Arusha, Tanzania Kaitlin Rogers spent the past two summers volunteering in schools in Arusha, Tanzania, and was assigned to live with Hawa M. Mgaya during her stay. Hawa, better known as Mama Mgaya, is an “incredibly special woman with a compelling story to tell. Not only has she overcome many hardships, her loving guidance and courage have been the saving grace for many others.” Mama Mgaya’s husband died in 1995, leaving her with nothing, and she single-handedly raised and financially supported fifteen children (only two of which were biologically her own). She currently runs a restaurant and is working to develop a support group to empower and encourage women to “stand on their own two feet and depend on themselves.” Rogers is using photographs and writing to capture the spirit and life of Mama Mgaya, to share her story, and to create awareness about her mentoring program. ABOVE: Gary Hawkins. Photograph by Pam Cook. OPPOSITE, top: Ed Pincus shares his photographs. Photograph by Tom Rankin. OPPOSITE, bottom: Wells Tower reads from a new piece of nonfiction. Photograph by Christopher Sims.
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Gary Hawkins One of Variety’s Top Ten Leaders in Learning
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ariety magazine recently named Center for Documentary Studies instructor Gary Hawkins as one of its “top ten leaders in learning.” Hawkins teaches documentary film production at CDS and frequently collaborates with students on projects. Hawkins’s In My Mind, which premiered at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in April 2010, involved CDS Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking students in an eight-camera shoot. In My Mind documents jazz pianist Jason Moran’s composition of the same name in its February 2009 premiere at New York City’s Town Hall. Hawkins is currently working with CDS instructor Emily LaDue and filmmaking students on another performance-based documentary featuring dancers from the 2010 American Dance Festival as they rehearse and perform Inlets 2, a previous collaboration between Merce Cunningham and John Cage. The following excerpt is edited from a longer interview with Gary Hawkins, conducted by Lauren Hart of CDS. LH: How do you feel about being named one of the “top ten leaders in learning” by Variety? GH: Honestly, I was so busy getting In My Mind to the Full Frame Film Festival I barely noticed. I think I said, “That’s nice,” and kept moving. Thinking about it now, I like the idea that it’s a “bottom-up” list. Variety contacted the students of all these professors rather than the institutions they teach for—the evaluations were pure in that way. It was simply, “Who was your best film professor? Why? What did you learn?” I like that Variety conducted the poll because Variety is essentially a business journal. They’re prone to think about results. Awards are nice but letters of appreciation from former students are far more satisfying. And more satisfying than that is to see them succeed in the real world and to know you had a small hand in it. LH: Where or with whom did you study filmmaking? How long have you been teaching and why do you teach? GH: I went to the University of Southern California film school, but I’m largely self-taught. I’m so old-school that I had to drive to the theaters to see a film or catch it with commercial breaks on television. There were no DVDs, no VHSs. I remember one Saturday catching Wim Wenders’s The American Friend in the afternoon, driving to another city and watching Robert Altman’s Images in the evening, and
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then driving to a third city to catch a midnight screening of David Lynch’s Eraserhead. I’ve been teaching almost twenty years here at Duke and before that at the North Carolina School of the Arts. And I’ve had other incidental gigs here and there. Why do I teach and not just make films? That’s an American question. In other countries filmmakers teach and make films and it’s no big deal. Godard teaches. Here in the U.S. there’s a stigma attached, and that’s a long conversation, so let’s just say that my films don’t make enough money to support me without teaching, and trust me, I don’t require an extravagant existence. LH: What draws you to documentary as opposed to other genres?
GH: I’m drawn not so much to documentary but to creative nonfiction. I painted before I took up filmmaking, and I seem to be built for collage and assemblage. I idolize guys like Joseph Cornell and Robert Rauschenberg. The kinds of films I’m drawn to seem to be made in roughly the same way. Footage is collected, combined with other footage, recombined, thinned out, whatever, on and on, until the whole of the presented experience settles in to what it wants to be. I prefer that way of working to the executed blueprint. But I’m not locked into documentaries versus fiction. I tell my students to apply themselves to both—the fiction gains depth and extension while even bland reportage becomes more aesthetic.
Ed Pincus
Mud Season
Groundbreaking documentary filmmaker Ed Pincus visited CDS in April to share and discuss photographs from his photography project Mud Season, which is about the people of Roxbury, Vermont, the town where he lives.
LH: Do you learn from your students?
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GH: Oh yes, absolutely. I could go on and on about students but to your point, my teaching philosophy, to the extent that I have one, is that I’m saving the students’ time. I say to myself, “They could figure it out on their own. I’m here to keep them from wasting time.” Teaching, coaching, and directing are all fundamentally the same activity. Sometimes you find yourself standing before a class almost performing—and this performance, you can either phone it in or you can go for it. Now to go for it, to truly communicate with, say, eighteen different people in a room, to be heard and understood by each one of them in his or her own unique way, requires me to gauge feedback and rather quickly. And that’s when they become the teachers, when they practically tell me how to get my points across. You speak and you watch their faces, especially their eyes, and you make adjustments as you go without compromising your basic tenets. It’s almost impossible to not know what you already know, but this ability to not know, or at least to empathize with those who don’t know, is essential to the practice of teaching.
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BACK COVER
THEROUGHSOUTHOF
Named one of the 13 Essential Southern Documentaries by Oxford American Magazine, The Rough South of Larry Brown weaves interviews of Brown and his wife, Mary Annie, with narrative adaptations of three of his short stories, Boy & Dog, Wild Thing, and Samaritans, brought vividly to the screen with performances by Will Patton (Remember The Titans), Paul Schneider (All The Real Girls), and Natalie Canerday (Sling Blade). The result is a unique and compelling examination of the life and works of the late Oxford, Mississippi firemanturned-writer.
THEROUGHSOUTHOF
EN AND DIRECTED BY GARY HAWKINS
LARRY BROWN
ARRY BROWN
FRONT COVER
LARRY BROWN
LARRY BROWN
“A beautifully conceived documentary inquiry.”—Scott Foundas, Variety “As colorful and evocative as [Brown’s] gritty literary milieu.”—Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter
—Michael Rechtshaffen, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
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DOWNHOME ENTERTAINMENT AND BLUE MOON FILM PRODUCTIONS PRESENT A GARY HAWKINS FILM “THE ROUGH SOUTH OF LARRY BROWN” WILL PATTON NATALIE CANERDAY PAUL SCHNEIDER LARRY BROWN
EDITED BY STEVEN GONZALES ORIGINAL SCORE BY VIC CHESTNUTT MUSIC SUPERVISOR JANICE GINSBERG CO-PRODUCER ERIN ALDRIDGE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JAKE FROELICH PRODUCED BY SAM FROELICH LISA MUSKAT JAMES WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY GARY HAWKINS
MARCOVITZ
Now available on DVD The Rough South of Larry Brown, newly re-edited and remastered to encompass the aftermath of Brown’s death in 2004. Written and directed by Gary Hawkins, and featuring an original score by Vic THEROUGHSOUTHOF Chesnutt.
“...as colorful and evocative as [Brown’s] gritty literary milieu.”
ATIO
Truth Out of Artifice In April, Wells Tower, journalist and author of the muchacclaimed book of short stories Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, talked about his development as a writer and the affinities between fiction and nonfiction as part of CDS’s Documentary Narrative Speaker Series.
THEROUGHSOUTHOF
Newly re-edited and re-mastered to encompass the aftermath of Brown's death in 2004, and featuring an original score by Vic Chesnutt, The Rough South of Larry Brown is a rich exploration of the writer behind the words and the woman behind the writer.
RY STUDIES L USAGE ERTAINMENT. ERVED.
Wells Tower
“A BEAUTIFULLY CONCEIVED DOCUMENTARY INQUIRY” —SCOTT FOUNDAS, VARIETY
Named one of the 13 Essential Southern Documentaries by The Oxford American
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Literacy Through Photography Arusha, Tanzania
June 28, 2010–January 8, 2011 Kreps and Lyndhurst Galleries Reception: Thursday, October 21, 6–9 p.m. Talk by Katie Hyde: 7 p.m. Panel Discussion: Thursday, November 4, 7 p.m.
Literacy Through Photography (LTP), an innovative arts and education program developed twenty years ago by artist Wendy Ewald at the Center for Documentary Studies in conjunction with the Durham Public Schools, challenges children to explore the world by photographing scenes from their lives and using their own images as catalysts for verbal and written expression. Framed around the themes of self-portrait, community, family, and dreams, LTP builds on the knowledge that young people naturally possess and connects them with broader perspectives and ways of communicating. The LTP project in Arusha, Tanzania, began in 2004 when Sister Cities of Durham brought two Tanzanian teachers to the Center for Documentary Studies to attend an LTP workshop. Building on these connections, a small staff from CDS and a rotating group of Duke University student fellows sponsored by DukeEngage spent the summers of 2008 and 2009 in Tanzania to offer workshops to hundreds of primary school teachers and to co-teach lessons that involved more than 2,450 students. These experiences culminated with a public exhibition of the children’s work, some of which is included in this exhibition. Also on display are photographs that document LTP’s process. To learn more about LTP: http://cds.aas.duke.edu/ltp/index.html
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In Literacy Through Photography, planning and shooting photographs is collaborative; therefore images are not credited to a single photographer.
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Shared Origins An Adoptive Family’s Journey Back to Ethiopia Photographs by Elena Rue July 19–September 3, 2010 Porch and University Galleries Reception: Tuesday, August 3, 5–8 p.m. Elena Rue is a documentary photographer who explores issues associated with international adoption and orphaned children. As a 2006 Hine Fellow, a program of the Center for Documentary Studies, she spent nine months working with a local nongovernmental organization in Ethiopia to document the lives of AIDS orphans in Addis Ababa. From 2007 to 2010, she worked for the Literacy Through Photography program at the Center for Documentary Studies, and she is currently pursuing a master’s degree at UNC–Chapel. Lory Mills is the parent of two children adopted from Ethiopia. She and her partner, Sonya, adopted their first child, Zoe, as an infant, and later they adopted two-year-old Tsehaye. For Lory, the trip the family made to Ethiopia was about helping Zoe and Tsehaye find a connection with their birth country and culture. Together, Lory, Zoe, Tsehaye, and Elena Rue collaborated in documenting the girls’ first trip back to Ethiopia. In preparation for the trip, they made journals in which they recorded their experiences and reflections. The family visited the orphanage where the girls were cared for before coming to the United States as well as other personally and culturally significant sites. The exhibition documents their shared experiences.
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Jazz Loft Project Jazz Loft Project Exhibition on Tour Chicago, Illinois The Jazz Loft Project exhibition opened at the Chicago Cultural Center on July 17, 2010. The exhibit is on view in the Sidney R. Yates Gallery through September 19. Opening reception: July 23, 6−8 p.m. Gallery talk with Jazz Loft Project director Sam Stephenson: August 26, 12:15 p.m. In My Mind film screenings: August 8, 1:00 p.m., and September 3, 6:30 p.m.
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www.chicagoculturalcenter.org
Monterey, California An exhibition of Jazz Loft Project audio and visual material will be on view at the Monterey Jazz Festival in Monterey, California, from September 17 through 19. Conversation with Sam Stephenson: September 19, 4 p.m.
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http://www.montereyjazzfestival.org/2010
http://cds.aas.duke.edu/exhibits/nowonview.html
TOP: Visitors at the Jazz Loft Project exhibition at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, February 2010. Photograph by Tom Rankin. BOTTOM: LTP–Arusha. Tanzanian Resources, Tourism, and Economy. Students represented “agriculture” and “killing a goat” as ideas central to Tanzania’s economy. OPPOSITE, top: LTP–Arusha. Hibernation. Students portrayed “hibernation” in a study of homeostasis. OPPOSITE, bottom: LTP–Arusha. Tanzanian Resources, Tourism, and Economy. In their portrayal of Mt. Kilimanjaro, students made photographs of “water” and “forest.”
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Courses & Workshops videography. April 16th examines the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting to add depth to the media’s portrayal of this tragedy. Students tell their stories and explain how the shooting affected them, both then and now. Kim Best | Better Late Than Never [Video]
Student Jametta Davis working the camera during the Documentary Video Institute, summer 2010. Photograph by Maggie Smith.
Certificate in Documentary Arts Graduates | Spring 2010
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hroughout the year the Center for Documentary Studies offers a wide range of short courses, institutes, and workshops for adults who are interested in learning to do their own documentary work. These courses, most of which are taught on nights and weekends by working professionals, are designed to help students of all ages and backgrounds gain the skills they need to explore doing documentary work on their own terms. The cornerstone of the CDS continuing education program is the Certificate in Documentary Arts. The certificate program establishes a process for engaging and empowering already motivated people to do the work they care about, and for examining the representational and ethical issues related to this work. Over the past eleven years, students in the certificate program have produced photography, film and video, audio, multimedia, and writing projects on a diverse range of topics. These projects often move out into the world to larger audiences in the form of exhibits, installations, websites, and other creative artworks. Ten students completed projects in this spring’s Final Seminar in Documentary Studies, a capstone course that all certificate students take in order to successfully complete their documentaries, and presented their work to the public in May.
The Students and Their Projects Russell A. Ball | Traumatic Brain Injury—The Epidemic Ignored [Video]
Russell Ball is a dermatopathologist and adjunct clinical professor in dermatology at the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After enrolling at CDS, he chose to reduce his private practice time to further pursue documentary work related to health care. He begins Elon University’s Master of Arts Program in Interactive Media this fall. Ball’s video explores the lives of individuals living with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and their struggle to find long-term care, as told through the experiences of a young woman living in a group home in Clemmons, North Carolina. Jennifer S. Barker | Through My Eyes: Living with a Hidden Disability [Video]
Jennifer Barker earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has since pursued a career in the medical/pharmaceutical and art fields. Barker aspires to raise awareness of hidden disabilities via the documentary art form. Through My Eyes is a personal account of the filmmaker’s twenty-year struggle with multiple sclerosis. Torria Beckham | April 16th [Video]
Torria Beckham received her B.A. in interdisciplinary studies from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2009. She is currently pursuing a career in documentary
Kim Best earned a Bachelor of Science in zoology from Duke University and then studied journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has written and edited science and medical articles for daily newspapers and journals, including a journal at Family Health International (FHI). In Better Late Than Never, Best documents the Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle (RTOOT), which is a nonprofit group that faces the unusual challenge of working very hard to be good, while also trying to maintain its “terrible” status. Jean Donnell | The Prophet [Video]
Jean Donnell has served as the executive pastor of River of Life Christian Center in Baltimore, Maryland, for more than thirty years. She is the founder of the Women’s Institute, Journeys Creative Writing Center, and Faith & Film Workshops and has taught communication and film studies at a number of universities. She is a graduate of the School of Documentary Studies at George Washington University. The Prophet chronicles Dianne Palmer’s gift of prophesying to people in song and her travels around the country to minister to others. Hali Garrett | Shake Rag Music [Photography]
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Hali Garrett has studied printmaking, video, and creative nonfiction writing. She worked on independent documentary photography projects while doing volunteer legal work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and she is currently studying in the graduate program in social work at the University of Texas. Shake Rag Music is a collection of photographs and text from an interview conducted during a visit with the artist’s cousin, an eccentric collector who runs a vintage guitar store in his living room in Dallas, Texas. Meg Hanna | I’ll Be Seeing You [Video]
Meg Hanna is a storyteller. Sharing is not her strong suit, so she came to the Center for Documentary Studies in order to push herself to tell her stories in front of an audience. I’ll Be Seeing You explores questions about the power of memory: What is left after someone is gone? Is it possible to grow closer to a loved one after they have passed? I’ll Be Seeing You is the story of a grandmother’s legacy, and the realization that sometimes a memory can be dearer than life. Jon Parker | The Great Human Race [Video]
Jon Parker is all about having fun, and he reports that being at the Center for Documentary Studies is like attending an adult summer camp (except it’s not always summer and it’s not a camp). His documentary provides a glimpse into the work and fundraising efforts of the Coalition to Unchain Dogs by following volunteer Danielle Kleinrichert as she prepares to run her first race at the fifteenth annual Great Human Race, a 5K run benefiting local nonprofit organizations in Durham, North Carolina. Veena Pureswaran | Weaving a Story [Multimedia]
Veena Pureswaran grew up in India before coming to the United States for graduate school. She is interested in documentary work as a means of sharing stories of people’s lives and communities from around the world. Weaving a Story is a multimedia portrait of the handloom weavers of Kalakshetra, a fine arts center in the city of Madras (Chennai) and one of the foremost institutions of classical dance and music in India. The documentary sheds light on the weavers’ community and how they survive in today’s fast-paced economy. Kathryn Stein | Sometimes We Dance [Video]
Kathryn Stein has worked with immigrant communities, pregnant and parenting women, and families affected by HIV/AIDS.
Register now for fall CDS Continuing Education courses and workshops! Visit on the CDS Porch, our news blog, at www.cdsporch.org
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Student Denver Dunn looks over his film in Ava Johnson’s Introduction to Photography course. Photograph by Maggie Smith.
In 2005 she graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, with a bachelor’s degree in social work. She currently lives in Chapel Hill, where she is exploring ways to merge her passions for social justice, the arts, and public health. In 2009, Stein traveled to Malawi to learn about the impact of the HIV epidemic on families, especially those headed by children and youth. Sometimes We Dance documents the resilience, creativity, humor, and pain of families affected by this epidemic.
Check out student work from the 2008 and 2009 video CDS iTunes U site. institutes
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Undergraduate Education Highlights Undergraduate Documentary Studies courses allow students to connect their educational experiences and creative expression to broader community life through documentary fieldwork projects, while they also examine theoretical and practical issues related to this work through readings, screenings, and classroom discussion. Taught by CDS staff, faculty members, and adjunct instructors, these courses provide community-based experiences using the mediums of photography, film and video, audio, and narrative writing.
Summer 2010 Introduction to Photography | Ava Johnson
This summer, CDS offered a summer session course for the first time. Sixteen students participated in Introduction to Photography, taught by Ava Johnson during Summer Sessions I and II. In the course, students learned the fundamentals of processing and printing black-and-white images.
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girls take viewers on a never-before-seen tour of the underclass of Iran with their brave and defiant stories. Award-winning filmmaker and graphic designer Hamid Rahmanian was educated in Tehran, Iran, before moving to the United States and completing an M.F.A. in computer animation at the Pratt Institute in 1977. He has worked for Disney Feature Animation Company, and has made three documentaries on video: Breaking Bread (2000), Sir Alfred of Charles De Gaulle Airport (2001), and Shahrbanoo (2002).
October 15, 7 p.m. Mississippi Damned | Tina Mabry Based on a true story, Mississippi Damned follows three young African Americans who reap the consequences of their family’s cycle of abuse, addiction, and violence. They struggle to escape their circumstances and must decide whether to confront what’s plagued their family for generations or succumb to the same crippling fate. A native of Tupelo, Mississippi, Tina Mabry graduated from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television with an M.F.A. in film production in 2005. Her short film Brooklyn’s Bridge to Jordan has been screened at more than fifty festivals and has won multiple jury and audience awards, along with an award for best director.
November 12, 7 p.m. Artois the Goat | Richard Reininger Lab technician Virgil Gurdies embarks on an epic quest to create the greatest goat cheese the world has ever known, and reclaim the heart of his beloved Angie. Virgil heads for the hills (literally) with a felonious German baker, a gravedigging hermit, and a tiny white goat named Artois. Richard Reininger is a graduate of the University of Texas Radio-Television-Film Program, where he produced numerous shorts, including the Cinematexas ’06 short Gnome, Sweet Gnome. For spring 2011 Southern Circuit screening dates and information:
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Staging History | Mike Wiley
In this documentary production and performance course, students will explore various avenues of staging American Civil Rights history. Utilizing research and development garnered in Wiley’s spring 2010 course, students in this class will shape, rehearse, and stage the world premiere of Breach of Peace, a documentary play based on the 1961 Freedom Rides. This is an opportunity to step into the shoes of a powerful variety of Civil Rights icons. This course is also open to CDS continuing education students.
Other News Southern Circuit Screenings Tour of Independent Filmmakers, Fall 2010 Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University September 17, 7 p.m. The Glass House | Hamid Rahmanian The Glass House follows four girls striving to pull themselves out of the margins by attending a one-of-kind rehabilitation center in uptown Tehran. With a virtually invisible camera, the
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The best way to get involved at the Center for Documentary Studies is to support the documentary arts. This is easy to do, by making a contribution through Friends of CDS. Through their contributions, Friends of CDS help to support the Center for Documentary Studies, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization affiliated with Duke University. Because the founders of the Center for Documentary Studies envisioned an organization that would bridge campus and community life, CDS was established as neither an academic department nor a traditional university educational center. Rather, CDS functions as an independent not-for-profit organization, with its own budget and fundraising goals. Two Ways To Give: You may make a secure on-line donation at http://cds.aas.duke.edu/donate OR you may send a check payable to “Center for Documentary Studies” at Friends of CDS, 1317 W. Pettigrew Street, Durham, NC 27705 For More Information: Contact Lynn McKnight, Associate Director for Programs and Communications, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University: 919-660-3663 or docstudies@duke.edu
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June 7–12 Intensive Introduction to Documentary Studies
A summer institute open to students of all levels of expertise Center for Documentary Studies
June 11, 8 p.m. Jazz Loft Project at Spoleto
Jazz Loft veteran and drummer Ronnie Free performs with the Charleston AllStars, featuring a talk by project research associate Dan Partridge McCrady’s Restaurant, Charleston, SC
June 19–26 Documentary Video Institute An immersion in the process of documentary filmmaking Center for Documentary Studies
June 28 Literacy Through Photography– Arusha, Tanzania
An exhibition in the Kreps and Lyndhurst Galleries, through January 8, 2011 Center for Documentary Studies
July 13, 7 p.m. Reality Radio Talk and Book Signing
With John Biewen and Stephen Smith Minnesota Public Radio, The UBS Forum, St. Paul, MN
July 17, 8 p.m. Jazz Loft Project Multimedia Presentation
Project Director Sam Stephenson at the New Mexico Jazz Festival Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque, NM
July 18, 3 p.m. Jazz Loft Project Presentation Project Director Sam Stephenson Verve Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, NM
July 19 Shared Origins: An Adoptive Family’s Journey Back to Ethiopia
An exhibition in the Porch and University Galleries, through September 3, 2010 Center for Documentary Studies
July 23, 6– 8 p.m. The Jazz Loft Project Opening Reception
A CDS traveling exhibition on view through September 19, 2010 Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
July 24 – 31 Hearing Is Believing I
Work with a fellow student to produce and edit a short audio documentary Center for Documentary Studies
July 26, 7 p.m. Reality Radio The Kitchen Sisters
A book talk and signing, featuring the popular duo from National Public Radio American Tobacco Campus, Bay 7, Durham, NC
August 3, 5 – 8 p.m. Exhibition Reception
Shared Origins: An Adoptive Family’s Journey Back to Ethiopia Center for Documentary Studies
August 5, 7:30 p.m. Reality Radio Talk and Book Signing
With John Biewen and The Kitchen Sisters The Booksmith, San Francisco, CA
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All events are on the Duke University campus unless otherwise noted. Please check the CDS calendar on the web for updates to this events listing
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DOCUMENT a Publication of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University | Summer 2010
Calendar
SUMMER/FALL 2010
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August 8, 1 p.m. In My Mind Film Screening
September 21, 6:30 p.m. Reality Radio Talk and Book Signing
Second screening, September 3, 6:30 p.m.
WGBH Studios, Boston, MA
A CDS production by Gary Hawkins and Emily LaDue
Claudia Cassidy Theater, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
August 9–14 Hearing Is Believing II: Making It Sing
For students who have gathered sound and are ready to produce a four- to tenminute audio documentary Center for Documentary Studies
August 26, Noon Gallery Talk
With John Biewen, Jay Allison, Ira Glass, and the Kitchen Sisters
September 23, 6-9 p.m. Winners of the Daylight/CDS Photo Awards Opening Reception Center for Documentary Studies
October 15, 7 p.m. Mississippi Damned
Southern Circuit film screening with writer/director Tina Mabry Center for Documentary Studies
Project Director Sam Stephenson on The Jazz Loft Project, on view through September 19, 2010
October 21, 6 –9 p.m. Literacy Through Photography– Arusha, Tanzania Reception and Talk
Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
Center for Documentary Studies
September 13 Winners of the Daylight/CDS Photo Awards
November 4, 7 p.m. Literacy Through Photography– Arusha, Tanzania Panel Discussion
An exhibition in the Porch and University Galleries, through December 3, 2010 Center for Documentary Studies
September 17, 7 p.m. The Glass House
Southern Circuit film screening with director Hamid Rahmanian Center for Documentary Studies
September 17–19 The Jazz Loft Project
An audiovisual exhibition with projected images (talk by Sam Stephenson, September 19, 4 p.m.) Monterey Jazz Festival, Monterey, CA
Center for Documentary Studies
November 12, 7 p.m. Artois the Goat
Southern Circuit film screening with producer Richard Reininger Center for Documentary Studies
December 10, 7 p.m. Final Project Presentations
By continuing education students completing the Certificate in Documentary Arts Richard White Auditorium, East Campus