MFA|EDA exhibits thesis works

The mention of a “documentary arts” gallery brings to mind a few familiar elements: arranged photographs, maybe some small flat screens playing short films or a set of headphones accompanying an audio piece. More unexpected would be recreations of a Mormon teenage girl’s bedroom or a locker filled with a stripper’s glittery high heels and fake eyelashes. Duke’s MFA program in Experimental and Documentary Arts (MFA|EDA), whose inaugural graduating class will show their thesis works throughout Durham until Apr. 14 as part of MFA|EDA 2013, embraces the unexpected by making a home for—and often blending—both artistic paradigms.

The two words that define the program, “experimental” and “documentary,” seem at first to be contradictory. Last Friday, at the exhibition opening at the Power Plant building in the American Tobacco Campus, onlookers tried to reconcile the program’s dual terminology, often wondering aloud, “How can something experimental be documentary?” MFA|EDA program director Tom Rankin opened his address to the audience by describing the graduates as “the top fifteen applicants that liked those two words.” After an hour or so of immersing in the Class of 2013’s work, it is apparent how the integration of experimental arts and various media lends itself to a more honest form of documentary and a more broad creative practice.

Duke launched its MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts in 2010. It was a milestone accomplishment as both Duke’s premier MFA program and the world’s first-ever program in Experimental and Documentary Arts. The MFA advocates for creating works that “engage and interrogate the world we live in.” True to the program’s mission statement, the inaugural exhibition includes an engaging range of artistic media “from installation and performance to film and photography.”

Each of the fifteen graduating students brings his or her own unique stories and builds off of each other’s inspiration. Their methods and subject matter are as diverse as their backgrounds: One student took five years off before starting her MFA, another makes her own cameras and another used her relationship with religion as inspiration for her project. And, as Rankin said, “this [exhibition] is only a sample of the amazing work these students have created in the past two years.” Lisa McCarty, a graduating student whose thesis work uses images from her handmade cameras, explained the program’s collaborative classroom process. Each week the students’ work is workshopped and critiqued by the other students in the program. McCarty said this is a helpful exercise even if others know little about your particular art form. Those enrolled in the program receive the expert opinion of professors who double as practicing artists, as well as student feedback from a variety of artistic disciplines.

Many, if not all, of the exhibited works demonstrate this integrated approach to art-making. Jolene Mok’s trio of HD Video installations—shipboard romance, SALGUOD SELYORB and I travel the ocean on your behalf—narrates the chronology of one man’s life via household knick-knacks. McCarty’s Gelatin silver and LightJet prints, part of her thesis entitled MDCCCXXXIX, adorn much of the wall space in the gallery, while other pieces occupy more nontraditional spaces. Among the latter, Laurenn McCubbin’s Monument to the Risen project is disorienting upon approach. A passageway to another section of the gallery beckons viewers onward, albeit with warnings of adult themes. The room is dark with red overtones and loud music is playing; to the right are three red doors, and a screen telling the viewer to insert a dollar (yes, you actually have to insert a dollar). When you do, an interview with a female sex worker plays concurrently with a projection of porn videos featuring the same women. McCubbin’s work also includes a room that resembles the backstage of a strip club. Cheap glitter makeup is scattered everywhere, as well as crumpled-up crude notes. A series of lockers features video interviews of female sex workers, each discussing intimacy in her life in its various forms. Also in the locker are her shoes, a change of clothes, more makeup, a purse. The artist, present in her own work, ensures viewers that these are indeed their belongings. Walking out of the “backstage” gives way to a large projection of the women previously featured, now silently staring into the camera. McCubbin explains: “All the time the public stares at sex workers and now [I give] them the opportunity to stare back at you.”

In accordance with her thesis work, McCubbin said that “the experimental takes you out of the passive realm and into the active realm.” But not everyone sees “experimental” this way, and rightly so. As McCarty said, “everyone has his or her own definition.” If this first graduating class’ work is any indication, Duke’s MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts will continue to provide and encourage platforms for alternative documentary that expand these definitions.

The MFA|EDA 2013 thesis exhibitions will run at select times and locations until Apr. 14. See http://mfaeda2013.org for more information.