Caitlin Margaret Kelly is the Curator of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University’s Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Her career began behind the camera after earning a degree in Journalism. Kelly also holds an MA Anthropology and an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts, grounding her cross-disciplinary approach to curating archives with attention to creative intent, historical context, and evolving ethics of access. Her creative practice centers material fragility.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
I regularly collect, curate, and teach with materials related to the documentary discipline. These include film, audio, and especially photography. Among my roles is to curate the photography gallery in the Rubenstein Library, which includes conducting original research on photographic topics, and presenting them to the public through exhibitions. I teach with materials in the archive, present at conferences, and mentor graduate students in the MFA program by serving on thesis committees. I am interested in the role of the documentary photograph, how work is made, by whom, and it's presence in the world.
