Our mission is to facilitate and promote documentary work in any medium that tells stories of peoples from around the world, their cultural evolution, migrations, struggles and triumphs. We support documentary work through direct funding, fiscal sponsorship, technical and creative services, as well as distribution and outreach. Sponsored activities can also include events, exhibitions, research, education and archiving documentary media. Through our education program we make scholarship grants to the families of people who have worked as cultural interpreters on our projects.
Currently, CDA initiates all of its documentary projects in house, partnering with organizations, community groups, funders, artists and technical consultants as needed. We try to promote the broadest possible interpretation of what documentary arts might look like. Our vision for future expansion includes a competitive grant submission program, an online journal that publishes state-of-the-art documentary photography and writing, and a brick-and-mortar photography center in California’s East Bay.
The Center for Documentary Arts is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
Meet Our Board
KC Chhan, board member
In her 20-year education career, KC has taught a broad range of secondary language classes from ELD to honors English. Her master’s degree in education with emphasis in cross-cultural teaching has enabled her to focus on empowering students from immigrant families. As an earlier immigrant herself, KC saw that her peers were often only encouraged to pursue two-year college degrees or vocational training, not university education. So she made it her mission to change that by teaching college prep classes and creating a scholarship club for students as young as 7th and 8th grade. One of her students got a full ride scholarship to Harvard and many others have received substantial support. KC is a survivor of the Cambodian Genocide.
Mike Chen, Secretary
Photojournalist Mike Chen was twice awarded Photographer of the Year by the New York Press Association. He has covered local New York events as well as International ones such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, elections in Poland and Germany, and the Tour de France. His freelance work includes documenting architectural work by a group of U.S. and Chinese planners for the city of Suzhou, China, resulting in a book about the project. Mike has also worked for the County of Fresno, CA, providing constituent services as an assistant to Supervisors to Susan Anderson and Andreas Borgeas.
Paula Cha, board member
Paula Cha has more than 20 years of experience working with refugee and immigrant communities. Her passion for this work is shaped by her parents’ experience resettling in the United States as Hmong refugees of the Secret War in Laos. Witnessing the challenges they faced while adapting to life in the United States inspired Paula to dedicate her career to supporting other immigrants through translation, job training and placement, health education, advocacy and more. She is committed to helping individuals and families access the resources they need to build confidence and successfully navigate life in America. Paula holds a bachelor’s degree in business with a focus on organizational leadership.
Joel Pickford, President and CFO
Photographer and filmmaker Joel Pickford is the author of Soul Calling: A Photographic Journey Through the Hmong Diaspora (Heyday 2012). His photographs have been exhibited and collected at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California Institute of the Arts, the Portland Art Museum, Monterey Museum, Weston Gallery, Centro Fotografico Manuel Alvarez Bravo in Mexico, among other institutions. His documentary films have been broadcast on PBS stations throughout the country. Joel is fluent in Lao Language and holds the world’s first interdisciplinary master’s degree in Documentary Studies and Southeast Asian Studies at California State University, Fresno, where he also taught photography.
See our current and past documentary projects
Learn more about our education program
