Final exams are fast approaching, and analyzing the expression of history and sociology through photography may not seem like the ideal study break. But, two exhibits currently on display at the Center for Documentary Studies may be worth a glance. Both "Personal Disruptions" and "Beggars and Choosers" bring together political issues and art in snapshots of American life.
Personal Disruptions: Coming of Age at Duke University in the 1960s and 1970s
With recent protests on campus, a photo collection of activists at Duke is all too relevant. The exhibition "Personal Disruptions: Coming of Age at Duke University in the 1960s and 1970s" provides historical perspective.
Black-and-white portraits accompanied by text are currently on display at the Center for Documentary Studies. The images profile 25 members of the community from an era when social activism was felt across the nation.
The people featured in the exhibit commented on the takeover of the Allen Building, a Duke workers' strike, a four-day silent vigil in response to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination and other events.
Alumni, Duke professors and the former mayor of Durham shared how local and national social movements affected them-then and now. Their stories describe an earlier Duke and are a reminder of questions surrounding race, class, gender and politics.
"The exhibit and narrative is a remarkable story of how students struggled to find in themselves [and] probe their own moral compass in a very disruptive period of history," said Caroline Vaughan, Trinity '71.
Vaughan is the creator and photographer of the project along with alumna Georgann Eubanks, Trinity '76, who recorded the oral histories.
Vaughan and Eubanks will discuss their exhibit and answer questions at a reception Saturday at 2 p.m. at the CDS.
Beggars and Choosers: Motherhood Is Not A Class Privilege in America
In one of her poems, Emma Lazarus called the Statue of Liberty the "Mother of Exiles"-but what does it mean to be a mother in America?
Historian and curator Rickie Solinger explores the implications of this politically laden question in a photography exhibition, "Beggars and Choosers: Motherhood is Not a Class Privilege in America."
The display of powerful images-captured by nearly 40 acclaimed photographers-arrived at the Center for Documentary Studies Monday after four years of nationwide travel.
"Beggars and Choosers" portrays marginalized mothers, forcing the audience to examine their own conceptions of motherhood.
"Politicians, policy makers, and many ordinary Americans consider [these women] too young, too poor, too not-white, too gay, too disabled, too foreign, too homeless to be 'legitimate mothers,'" said Solinger. "Yet, there they are, in the photographs, being mothers-with strength, dignity and determination."
The collection of photographs builds on the themes of a book with the same name by Solinger. She often links her books with an exhibition to make the subject matter more accessible to the general public.
"I am very interested in drawing attention-in words and in images-to how these questions have been answered across American history," said Solinger. "Who is a legitimate mother? Who decides?"
Solinger will give a lecture, "Nine Ways of Looking at a Poor Woman," at a reception at the CDS May 4.
"Personal Disruptions" will be shown until April 24. "Beggars and Choosers" will run through June 30.
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