Films, multimedia installations, video art, written prose, printmaking, and sonic art by the members of the 14th class of Duke University’s Master of Fine Arts in Experimental & Documentary Arts.

Rutter, who has decades of experience as an arts executive, served most recently as president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Her first day on the job was September 1.

Music, and especially the spirituals, is an important part of Duke Chapel Dean Luke Powery’s preaching, scholarship, and Christian faith.

Explore snapshots of a few of the many student artists graduating this year May 9–11.

This Spring semester, Duke English Professors JP Gritton and Mesha Maren, in conjunction with Duke Arts and the Writers Collective, hosted a series of writer's workshops featuring local writers who provided insight on how to work through elements of one's writing.

The free summer series, cheekily titled “Music Near the Gardens” due to its temporary location change to East Campus, has a special partnership with the Pinhook this year.

Through November 7, Duke Chapel is hosting a large ofrenda commissioned by Duke Arts, featuring calaveras (painted skulls) by artists with the Inter-Latin American Artist Collective.

Duke Arts and LeMonde Studio have joined forces to unveil the enchanting Light Lane art installation. Picture this: relive your childhood joy by hopping onto stationary bikes that, while they won’t move, will transport you to a realm of breathtaking artwork created by Durham’s finest artists.

When the Tony Awards ceremony highlighted the year’s best work in the theater on Sunday, a Duke alumna walked away with one of the most prestigious awards.

Scientist by day and stand-up comedian by night, Monika Narain '25, a double major in Physics and Visual & Media Studies with a minor in Mathematics, takes us on their journey through their Fall 2023 semester with Duke in New York: Creative Industries, a program from the Global Education Office, co-sponsored by all of Duke's arts departments.

Born from the creative and wellness-promoting visions of Jane Gagliardi, Associate Dean for Learning Environment and Well-Being in the School of Medicine, and Anna Wallace, Student Engagement Manager at Duke Arts, a new Duke Arts Create workshop series begins this spring semester.

23 Duke academics across the disciplines of English, Dance, Romance Studies, Physics, Biology and more will activate 11th Organ I: A Symposium, a six-hour experimental symposium from Duke Dance Professor Michael Kliën. Audiences are welcome to drop in at any point to experience this intimate weaving of diverse minds on Tuesday, December 5 at 4 p.m. in the von der Heyden Studio Theater located inside the Rubenstein Arts Center.

Duke Arts is excited to announce the opening of a Día de los Muertos Ofrenda, a Day of the Dead altar piece, in the Rubenstein Arts Center Gallery (2nd Floor). Guided by the expertise of local Latinx artists, this ofrenda serves as a powerful homage to the rich cultural heritage and sacred traditions of the Day of the Dead.

Tom Rankin, Director of Duke's MFA program in Experimental and Documentary Arts, remembers Full Frame Documentary Film Festival founder and filmmaker Nancy Buirski.

Eco-artist, disability culture activist, Duke 2022-2023 artist-in-residence Marina Tsaplina developed Soil and Spirit, a project including a variety of community events, lab visits, movement workshops, and engineering and puppetry classes gathering people with diverse lineages to transform the disconnected relationship with the living world.

Artist Rob Swainston will be in residence at the Rubenstein Art Center from March 6th - March 10th. Swainston’s practice combines digital processes with traditional printmaking techniques in works that span painting, sculpture, video and installation.  

In this interview, Benenson Awardee Jacob Egol ’23 shares his experience building his skills as a cellist during the 7-week summer orchestra program at Brevard Music Center Summer Institute & Festival.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden recently announced the annual selection of 25 influential motion pictures to be inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Of the 25, two films by New Day Films founding members were inducted this year. Betty Tells Her Story, by Liane Brandon, and Union Maids, by Julia Reichert and Jim Klein.

This past September, Cantar, by Cuban-American drummer, composer, and bandleader, Dafnis Prieto, was released, by two Duke alumni: Eric Oberstein (T '07) and Harsha Murthy (T '81).

Audio Under the Stars, the popular community listening series built around audio stories, returns to Durham this fall in a new location – the great lawn at Durham Central Park! This special evening on Friday, October 14 is in addition to a previously-announced event in Pittsboro, NC this Friday, September 23.

Felwine Sarr, Anne-Marie Bryan Distinguished Professor of Romance Studies at Duke, has been described in various biographies as a public intellectual, humanist, philosopher, economist, musician, playwright and poet. His face and his distinguished work will soon become more familiar to the community with the production of two of his plays by Duke Performances.

On display at the Rubenstein Arts Center through Sunday, September 18, ALHAMDU | MUSLIM FUTURISM” is an evolving experiential art exhibition and digital archive created by MIPSTERZ that explores Muslim Futurism.

Theater major Samantha Streit ’22 reflects on her senior project, a one-woman show titled This Green Plot Shall Be Our Stage, which she will perform April 14–16 at the Duke Gardens. The show centers on the idea that nature—in particular, the forest—acts as a metaphorical place of potential, freedom, and magic in Shakespeare’s works.

Join us in celebrating the work of this year’s graduating cohort in the MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts program. Learn more about graduating students' thesis exhibitions, which are on view at Duke and in Durham from March 25 to April 15.

Cherranda Smith ‘15 shares how her current job at iHeartRadio's Black Information Network allows her to meaningfully explore her interests in both social work and digital media. “I have an awesome opportunity to integrate my social work skills with writing — an activity that used to just be a hobby/calling for me,” she says.

In this interview with Duke Arts, Jess Chen ’20 reflects on her experience as a two-time Benenson Award in the Arts recipient and offers advice to students applying for the award. “My two summer experiences were very different, but that’s the advantage of the Benenson: it is an extremely open-ended grant,” she says.

In this interview with Duke Arts, Sophie Caplin ’18 reflects on her experience as a Benenson Award in the Arts recipient and offers advice to students applying for the award. “[The Benenson] fueled my fire for performance, and it gave me motivation to work hard,” she shares.

For this installment of our “Artists as Researchers” series, we profile Brittany J. Green, a Ph.D. student in music composition and the current director of the Duke New Music Ensemble. She worked with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to record her latest orchestral work, “Against/Sharp,” which explores the relationship between music and Black feminist theory; it will premiere online in January 2022.

Morgan Biele '23 shares a piece she wrote for Duke Medical Ethics Journal, an undergraduate-led publication that features students' voices in blogs and articles that center ethics in dialogue with medicine. “I’m extremely passionate about how art depicts health and well-being, and in turn how health and well-being inform art,” Biele shares.

Students in Shambhavi Kaul's "Expanded Cinema" course created immersive, large-scale installations in the Rubenstein Arts Center in Fall 2021. Their work demonstrates the value of designated spaces for instructional arts learning, experimentation, and practice.

Support NC artists this season! Use our guide to find where to buy art by local artists in Durham (or online). 

For the 2021-22 Doing Good grant cycle, Duke Arts is partnering with the Office of Durham and Community Affairs to support community-led art projects that have a positive impact on Duke’s fourteen partner neighborhoods.

Professor of music Scott Lindroth, whose new work ”T120” will premiere this Saturday, Oct 9 in Baldwin Auditorium, shares his thoughts on music-making during the pandemic and the long-awaited return to live, in-person performances. “I think it's heightened emotions for all of us in the performing arts to be able to be back on stage again, realizing how special that ritual is,” he shares.

This summer, Lizzy Kramer '22 worked with Durham-born artist John Felix Arnold III on one of his recent installations, “Reimagining Cerberus,” which calls attention to the human impact on climate change. We invited Kramer to share her reflections on the experience, including her belief in the ability of art to pose questions and challenge perceptions.

Three Duke alumnae share how they split their time at Duke between rigorous science courses and a steadfast passion for dance. “When I got to college, it wasn’t really a question of whether or not I would continue to dance as I pursued a career in medicine,” Gabby Cooper '20 said. “It was how I could make both of them work.”

Over the course of the Spring 2021 semester, visiting artist Carl Pope worked with students to bring “The Bad Air Smelled of Roses” (2004—), his ongoing installation about the presence and function of Blackness in society, to Duke's campus. This silk screen and wheat paste iteration is on view at the Rubix until December 1.

We showcase the work of this year’s graduating cohort in the MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts program in this special series of interviews. Fellow artists, MFA EDA alumni, faculty, and mentors interviewed each graduating student about their thesis exhibitions, which are on view at Duke, in Durham, and online May 7 through June 5.

Jayne Yu Wang's “The Unfinished Utopia” is an installation of a fictional city, Fangchuan, at the border of China, Russia, and North Korea. Following a foreign flaneur’s diary, viewers will have the opportunity to explore the city through audio, photography, architectural design, Instagram posts, and ordinary objects in this city.

A Bass Connections team has created an art installation on view in the lobby of the Rubenstein Arts Center. “This project is emblematic of the integrative and synthetic thinking that society needs to tackle the wicked challenges of climate change and sea level,” says Betsy Albright, assistant professor at the Nicholas School.

On March 27, a group of Duke students painted a portrait of their friend, Raj Mehta, a member of the Class of 2022 who passed away in 2020, on the Campus Drive free expression tunnel. We share a statement from Shivam Patel ’22, Raj’s former roommate, about this painted tribute.

Duke Arts invites returning alumni—and anyone!—to enjoy these offerings from across our vibrant arts community. This year, there is arts every day of Reunions Week!

The Enviro-Art Gallery is an annual showcase of artwork that aims to bring awareness to environmental issues through visual media. Featuring a monthlong virtual gallery of over 600 works and 15 speaker sessions from April 5 to 10, students Cameron Oglesby and Isabel Wood share how this year's showcase has expanded in spite of the pandemic.

On April 15, 17 and 18, Duke Theater Studies will present its spring mainstage production, Medea. Directed by senior María Zurita Ontiveros and set designed by senior Ash Jeffers, Medea is the first mainstage Theater Studies has produced with students at its helm. The show will be performed in person and live streamed to virtual audiences.

A new book co-edited by Miguel Rojas Sotelo, adjunct professor and event coordinator at the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies at Duke, is the first to put Sergio Sánchez Santamaría in context. On March 24, a panel conversation featuring the artist, celebrates the first edition release.

Yng-Ru Chen ’01, owner of Praise Shadows Art Gallery in Boston, MA, is presenting an exclusive virtual preview of the new exhibition, “Memento Mori,” on March 11. Ahead of the event, Chen connected with her former professor, Gennifer Weisenfeld, to reflect on their initial meeting at Duke and Chen's journey into the art world.

Lockdown poses many hurdles for artists, but it has not stopped Duke student filmmakers from making new work. In times of uncertainty, trust, working at smaller scales, and being true to yourself are essential.

Big Night In for the Arts, broadcast live on WRAL-TV on March 11, will raise funds to support the COVID relief work of four local arts councils. Duke Arts and Duke’s Office of Durham and Community Affairs are event sponsors. Join the performance and consider supporting our regional cultural ecosystem.

Multy Oliver ‘21 began interning with the Hayti Heritage Center last summer and loved the experience so much she continues to support programs remotely. In honor of the upcoming Hayti Heritage Film Festival, we invited Oliver to share her experience with one of Durham's leading arts non profit organizations.

Maya Robinson ‘11 reflects on her newsroom’s shift to remote work last March due to the pandemic, necessitating a reimagining of how photography is created. She also shares how her Duke Visual Studies degree taught her the power of photography and critical thinking.

Emma Steadman '22, co-founder and president of Runway of Dreams at Duke, shares the story of the club's founding and partnership with NCSU textile design students in advance of "Coming Together, Creating Change," a virtual adaptive runway show premiering Thu, Feb 11.

La Colombe Contemporary Glasswork is a homegrown fused glass studio born out of the pandemic. We catch up with Alex Sanchez Bressler '18, formerly arts administration fellow for Duke Arts, to learn about this family business.

Clay Sanders, who received a PhD in civil engineering from Duke in 2020, currently has a painting depicting a dance rehearsal on display in the Rubenstein Arts Center. He shares how making art has helped his career as an engineer and provided him with an outlet during difficult times.

Courtney Liu '13, MFA in Dance '21, shares "Blurring the Lines" created with undergraduate students in Intermediate Ballet. "Creative projects are still being made and it is more important than ever to share, engage with, and celebrate each other's work," shares Emma Geiger, MFA EDA '22, who collaborated on filming and editing.

Support NC artists this season! Use our guide to find where to buy art by local artists in Durham (or online). 

Gianluca Corinaldesi started his position at Duke just three weeks before COVID stay at home orders. Learning to play the piano with his sons has brought joy to the Corinaldesi family home. "[It] puts me in a good mood like few other things," he reflects.

Meet North Carolinian artist Antoine Williams, creator of a wheat paste and sound installation on a new temporary structure for public art behind the Rubenstein Arts Center.

William Paul Thomas is an artist based in Durham. He taught at Duke in 2017-2018 as the Brock Family Visiting Instructor in Studio Arts, was in residence at the Ruby in 2019, and frequently leads workshops with the Nasher Museum of Art and DukeCreate. In this profile, junior Dani Yan digs deeper into the "magnetic" portraits in Thomas's Cyanosis series.

Wondering which movies you should watch during winter break? Junior Brandon Xie has compiled a list of “The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time” using statistics from 23 different movie websites.

New books by Richard Powell and Tom Rankin are available at independent Durham businesses—just in case you're beginning to think about holiday shopping.

Meet the students behind the scenes of Duke Arts—from tour guides to social media superstars, each is an important advocate in supporting our work in growing the arts across campus.

Sofia Zymnis '21 shares a project started as a pseudo-autobiographical documentation of her own experience during lockdown that has now developed into a constantly-growing website, inviting people to share their own balcony community in order to grow a shared virtual one.

Jonathan Homrighausen, PhD '23, shares a calligraphic piece, "Heaven's Roof," inspired by the relationship to home during COVID-19.

Christine Doeg '87 shares the documentary film she produced called One Vote. This film captures the compelling stories of diverse Americans on Election Day 2016.

Brittany J. Green, Duke PhD student in Music Composition, shares "Connected," a short piece for viola, piano, and fixed media inspired by paradoxical feelings of isolation and mediated connectedness that many have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Duke Performances Advisory Board Chair and Duke alumnus Ari Redbord reflects on the importance of the arts, particularly the impact and importance of the performing arts in this moment.

Dave Heaton '89 and Lucy Heaton discuss the connection between the arts, lifelong wellness, and how arts expand students' potential beyond the classroom.