Archive of Documentary Arts
Priya Kambli, detail from Me (Orange)
Wendel White, images from the series Manifest
Joshua Rashaad McFadden, detail from Jeremiah Thompson left, and his father, Joseph Thompson
Jess T. Dugan, detail from Hank, 76, and Samm, 67, North Little Rock, AR
Leah Dyjak, detail from New Beach
Jeanine Michna Bales, detail from Stopover, Frogmore Plantation; Concordia Parish, Louisiana
William Gedney, detail from Kentucky Notebook
James Karales, detail from contact sheet
Frank Espada, detail from Washington, DC, 1973
About
The Archive of Documentary Arts is part of Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Its mission is to collect, promote, preserve, and provide access to audio, moving images, photography, and text from around the world related to the history of documentary arts.
The ADA works closely with the Center for Documentary Studies, Duke's MFA Program in Experimental & Documentary Arts, and the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
News & Events
Now on view in the Rubenstein Photography Gallery:
James Van Der Zee and Michael Francis Blake: Picturing Blackness in the 1920s
Hightlighting the resonances between the work of James Van Der Zee and Michael Francis Blake, two African American photographers working in the 1920s at the height of the "New Negro Movement."
Audio Documentary Award
What is audio documentary? How do recording technologies, sonic vernaculars, activism, and dissent come together in a documentary art form that engages with our ears?
This new award, sponsored by the Human Rights Archive and the Archive of Documentary Arts at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, seeks to support outstanding documentary artists exploring human rights and social justice and expand the audio holdings in the Archive for long-term preservation and access. Through the use of aural practices, we are seeking submissions that delve into the sensory world of human rights via the act of listening. We highly encourage works that pull from the strengths of the medium and go beyond the core mission of transmitting information but can create sonic worlds and immersive experience. Both narrative and experimental documentary works are accepted.
