The Center for Documentary Arts (CDA) is dedicated to using the tools of documentary work – photography, oral history, film making, narrative writing, radio broadcasting, and visual art – to help Utahns look inward to better understand our state’s past and present and to gaze outward to discover our connection to the nation and to the world. CDA creates and supports projects that examine and honor the cultural, spiritual, and ethnic identities of our nation’s diverse population in forums wherein we can acknowledge differences, establish common ground, and hence, build community.

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Programming Vision

Modeled in part on the pioneering ventures of the International Center for Photography in New York City, founded by Cornell Capa, and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, founded by Dr. Robert Coles, the Utah Institute for Documentary expression and Art (UIDEA) promotes documentary studies, documentary expression, and documentary art through a K-12 traveling exhibits program called “Exhibits That Teach” and a Human Rights Gallery that hosts and builds exhibits with significant national and international human rights themes.