They say a picture is worth a thousand words. No adage could prove truer of Youth Document Durham: A Five-Year Retrospective, a photography exhibit opening this week at the Center for Documentary Studies.
Youth Document Durham is an outreach initiative uniting adolescents from all walks of life in the Durham community. The month-long summer program, supervised by the CDS, provides them with documentary equipment and instruction. The program gives students the opportunity to interpret their surroundings in a new way.
"We wanted to put cameras and audio recorders in the hands of a local group of radically diverse young people so that they could represent their own lives through words and pictures to each other and to the community," wrote Hong An-Truong, former documentary arts educator of Youth Document Durham: The Book, a compiliation of student essays and photographs.
This exhibit showcases the work of young people between 2000 and 2004. It includes images revealing adversity as well as triumphs within the lives of the artists in the Durham community.
"It wasn't until I'd lived in Durham for a few years that I thought about its wide mix of people and frequent contradictions," wrote artist Lena Eckert-Erdheim in Youth Document Durham: The Book. "What we share is our commitment to the work we've done, how we've all created the story of an individual and the story of a community at the same time."
While photographs are the focus of the exhibit, students also record dialogue that corresponds to their projects. Youth Noise Network, a continuation of Youth Document Durham, will present a program on the audio component of their work in December. It plans to complement the photography collection.
The strength of Youth Document Durham lies in the artists themselves, and their individual development throughout the process.
"They develop a confidence in their own perceptions-a confidence in being able to talk to adults and a confidence in their creativity," said Barbara Lau, community documentary projects director. "I think they carry that with them into other parts of their lives and that's very important."
"I think that viewers will be amazingly impressed at the ability of young people to create compelling documentary work and to express who they are, where they're from, and what they care about," said Lau. "This exhibit is about possibility."
Youth Document Durham: A Five-Year Retrospective will be on view at the Center for Documentary Studies from Oct. 23 to Jan. 7. A public reception will be held Nov. 4 from 2 to 4 p.m.
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