Yet soon after my son’s birth, while balancing work, a new child and a sick family member, I became unable to sleep. If I did drift off, I would wake up convinced my son was crying for me. In reality, he wasn’t. I was breaking down. When I went to the Emergency Room, what I mistakenly insisted for months was a sleep disorder, they quickly diagnosed as severe postpartum depression. I recovered, but only after many, many months and with a new firm sense of my limitations and a radically different vision of what makes a good life. In talking to many mothers in the years since then, I have come to understand that, while most of us (hopefully) don’t experience something as dramatic as I did, we all do experience a significant transformation when we become mothers.

Interestingly enough, new brain imaging technologies are baring this out. Only in the last decade have scientists confirmed that our brains are plastic; in other words our brains continue to grow, change and adapt over the course of our lives in response to our experiences. And experiences related to motherhood force growth.

Initially, this project was intended to explore one question: how motherhood changes us. However, as I began more formally interviewing mothers, I also became drawn to hearing the stories that aren’t often told. Why do we most often see images in the media of two same-race, healthy, middle-class, married, heterosexual parents with same-race, healthy, biologically-conceived children? I wanted to paint a more comprehensive portrait of motherhood today–one that would increase understanding and compassion between and among mothers who, superficially, might seem quite different.

To both ends, I have sought out mothers of different ages, races, socioeconomic classes, professions, biological and adoptive, hetero- and homosexual, single and coupled, of typically- and atypically-developing children. I’ve interviewed women from North Carolina, Maine, Pennsylvania, California, Massachusetts, Vermont, St. Croix, and South Dakota.

In my interviews with mothers, we touch on what drives us to become mothers; how we expect our lives to change and then how they really change; how our ideas about work and life and self identity change; and how our relationships with families, friends and partners change. The interview structure has been purposefully loose, in order to zero in on what serves as the heart of each mother’s story. Some interviews focus on a situation specific to that mother which colors much of her experience of motherhood. I am constrained in that I capture each mother on a single day; we all know that our perspectives change across a single day and over time.

The first person I interviewed was my mother-in-law, who died soon after of end-stage breast cancer. The day I interviewed her, when she was very, very sick, I asked why she continued treatment. She said, “Once you’re a mother, whether they’re one or 50, you don’t want to leave those children.”

To view this project, visit: http://www.howmotherhoodchangesus.com/

- Liisa Ogburn

It is one thing to read statistics about the causes of a complex issue such as pediatric obesity; it is entirely another to gain the trust of and connect with a person who has lived those statistics.

As the residents related their stories to me, I became personally invested in this dire issue of homelessness that looms over Durham. As one former resident said, homelessness “can happen to anyone…It’s not a matter of moral deficiency.”
- Daniella Choi

I’m grateful that she had the courage and frankness to describe her own battles in the hopes of helping her daughter with the same problem. To me, she has also given a face to a problem that almost two-thirds of Americans now have to grapple with. Ultimately, she has reminded me that there’s much more beyond this comfortable, sheltered Duke bubble and taught me to be more open-minded toward those who share such a different set of experiences from my own.
- Amy Huang

To see the multimedia portraits produced about individuals who have experienced homelessness, visit: http://housingfornewhope.wordpress.com/

To see the multimedia portraits produced with youth diagnosed with serious health issues related to overweight and obesity, visit: http://www.onlyakid.org/

Last year, when another life-long resident passed away, the neighborhood lamented that we had never captured her story. This project originated from that desire: to capture the important stories of cherished neighbors before they were gone.

However, in the process of capturing these stories, this project has grown into something more: a way to recognize and celebrate the individuals who worked hard to revitalize a community that nearly became a super highway; a way to learn and teach history; a way to build and strengthen the connections in our community; and a model to inspire community development advocates in their work to transform urban neighborhoods that are in decline.

To view this work, visit: http://www.oakwoodproject.org/

We’ve now worked with over thirty residents and fellows. The work has been featured in exhibits, local and national conferences, press and at events, and will be shared in several academic articles in the coming year. For more information about this program and opportunity, visit:  http://documentingmedicine.com/

Children, when asked those big, meaty, essential questions, tell it to you straight. The images above are from a series I did with a group of children, when they were 6, and then again five years later. The question: “If you had one wish for the world, your family or yourself, what would it be?” I wanted to explore how our dreams change over time.

In 2002, while contemplating a second child and an international move, I became interested in life’s crossroads, those messy periods in people’s lives when they are living — uncomfortably — between two conflicting places or identities. These periods have the potential to reveal us in new ways and, very often, to change us. For this project, I sent out a call for female subjects via email. From the replies, for reasons of story, availability and proximity, I chose seven. I went to each person’s home and briefly interviewed them. We then jointly picked a location in their home and props that seemed representative of this period.