The Documentary Search: Photographs, Video, and Writing by Six Capstone Students
May 14–July 31, 2005
University Gallery


Six Duke students will present their documentary projects, as they complete their Certificates in Documentary Studies. Excerpts from the projects will be on view in the exhibition The Documentary Search.

The students and their projects are:

• Stephanie Davis: "The Open-Minded Seniors of Tillery, North Carolina"

• Adam Gorod: "Balancing Two Worlds: The Georgetown Steel Mill in a Global Economy"

• Benjamin Ari Leshin: "Ham Shack: Ham Radio and the Members of the Triangle East Amateur Radio Association"

• Macy Parker: "Bright Leaf People: Personal Oral Histories from the Tobacco South"

• Christopher J. Paul: "Two Communities, Two Forests"

• D.J. Vaughn: "A Single Mother: A Break from the Statistics"


Each of the students has completed a minimum of four elective and two required documentary studies courses—including the Capstone seminar this semester—to finish the Certificate in Documentary Studies program at CDS. In the Capstone course, students prepared two presentations of their work: a public talk for graduation weekend at Duke and an exhibit of a small selection of their work in the University Gallery at CDS. These two presentations were edited from longer, final documentary projects completed and turned in at the end of the semester.

In completing their work, the students were required to conceptualize a documentary project and carry it out over several months, determine the form the final projects should take, figure out how to solve technical issues that might keep them from successfully rendering what they saw and experienced, and come to terms with complicated ethical issues. For their public presentations, students had to decide on a narrative voice to employ, and on whether and how to present conclusions about their documentary fieldwork. In short, Capstone students faced the same contradictions and difficulties all photographers, filmmakers, and writers face outside the university as they take on documentary projects.

"As I worked with the students, it was clear that their choices of documentary projects were not purely academic," says Alex Harris, a professor at CDS. "Each tackled a subject that in one way or another was already important in their lives. I would argue that these students are on a kind of documentary search: to find meaning in the lives of others and to discover things they don't already know. Whether or not they continue to pursue documentary work, this may be a search worth pursuing for the rest of their lives."


CAPSTONE PROJECT STATEMENTS

"The Open-Minded Seniors of Tillery, North Carolina"

In response to the economic difficulties American farmers endured during the Great Depression, the Roosevelt Administration established a series of experimental farming settlements with the goal of organizing poor people into developed communities that would afford its inhabitants improved economic and social conditions. In Halifax County, North Carolina, the Resettlement Administration set up a large farming community for both blacks and whites, called Roanoke Farms. Twelve miles separated the black farming section, Tillery, from the white farming section, Roanoke Rapids. Together, Tillery and Roanoke Rapids constituted the largest New Deal resettlement farm in North Carolina.

In 1935, two hundred African American families came by mule and wagon to Tillery with the promise of forty to sixty acres of farmland, a two-bedroom home, a large barn, and a chicken coop. This promise created dreams of new beginnings and expectations for a prosperous and independent life, free from the racism and bigotry that had so burdened these families in the past.

Instead, the citizens of Tillery encountered consistent and powerful discrimination regarding their entitlement under the New Deal. Through the years, the amount, placement, type, and price of land allotted have been unfavorable, and they have faced unreasonable restrictions on the cash crops they were permitted to produce. Even today, the citizens of Tillery must confront economic underdevelopment, denial of water and sewage rights, industrial hog production that contaminates their ground water, lack of local medical services, and segregation in the county school system.

The Open-Minded Seniors of Tillery, North Carolina, an organization created in 1986 and flourishing today, meets every Tuesday in order to preserve Tillery’s history, promote cultural awareness, and improve the social, economic, and educational interests of its citizens. The people who make up this organization are the focus of my documentary project.

—Stephanie Davis


"Balancing Two Worlds: The Georgetown Steel Mill in a Global Economy"

The closing of a steel mill in the small coastal town of Georgetown, South Carolina, in October 2003 forced community residents to reflect on the impact of international trade policies on their lives. By the following summer, even as the mill reopened, I spoke with many residents who were still vocal about the effects of steel dumping, free trade agreements, and the minimal wages paid to foreign workers, which created many of the conditions that precipitated the mill shutdown. I then returned to Duke to talk with professors who had different opinions about the effects of economic globalism. This video is the result of my personal attempt to make sense of divergent viewpoints—between what was told to me by people in a community directly affected by the global economy in contrast to perspectives I heard upon my return to academia the following semester.

—Adam Gorod
Length: Approximately 18 minutes.


"Bright Leaf People: Personal Oral Histories from the Tobacco South"

My project is a series of oral histories from family and friends involved with the North Carolina tobacco industry. I am attempting to create a personal history of this crop as it has touched the people around me: from my great-grandfather’s involvement with the Duke tobacco company to my stepfather’s modern farm. Compiling these stories has given me a chance to reflect on being raised on Tobacco Road, and the many ways in which these bright leaves have shaped my own perception of what it means to be from this place.

—Macy Parker


"A Single Mother: A Break from the Statistics"

While statistics tell us that single mothers in the United States are far more economically disadvantaged than are married mothers, this is only part of the picture. Through these photographs I have attempted to capture the complexities of life for a single mother, outside the traditional familial role. This project documents single parenthood in a way that goes beyond statistics or stereotypes in order to bring light, and perhaps more understanding, to this segment of the population.

—D.J. Vaughn


"Two Communities, Two Forests"

In the western Uganda province of Masindi, communities are taking advantage of new legislation to own and manage their own forests.

In Caswell County, North Carolina, a community group has bought abandoned land near the historic district and has cleared it in hopes of planting an arboretum of native species.

The communities in Uganda, with the help of a local NGO, are demarcating their property and forming democratic committees to administer the forests and distribute their benefits among the users. The people depend upon the forests for day-to-day survival—for water, food, building supplies, and fuelwood. Of utmost importance is preventing outsiders from robbing them of their resource, either through logging or slash-and-burn farming of tobacco.

The founders of the Community Arboretum Project in Yanceyville hope that integrating the arboretum into the historic district will enhance the community and increase tourism to the area. They are working hard to find resources to match the grant they received from the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Finding local resources for this arboretum park is a challenge in a region of tobacco farmers faced with a changing industry.

—Christopher J. Paul


"Ham Shack: Ham Radio and the Members of the Triangle East Amateur Radio Association"

This documentary project looks into the interests of ham radio enthusiasts, their equipment, and their passion. I became interested in the topic because my late grandfather was a ham radio operator and I wanted to explore the role of hobby radio in a technology-driven society. My project uses photography, audio, and writing to document the individuals of TEARA and ham radio in North Carolina. This series of portraits is drawn from a greater body of work.

—Benjamin Ari Leshin





banner image:

Partial view of the Lyndhurst Gallery, one of four exhibition spaces at CDS. Photograph by Christoper Sims.


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