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WALL-E Movie review

WALL-E Movie review

New Movie Review:
WALL·E
Spring 2008 | Volume 31, Number 1 | Features

Lawrence Chen, Adjunct Professor of Art

Photography by Lawrence Chen
Wave Rider, 2000, Photography, 13"x9", by Lawrence Chen


By Katie Kresser, SPU Assistant Professor of Art History
Photo by John Keatley


Lawrence Chen’s “Wave Rider,” like Feldman’s “Sheep Gate,” is a piece that was created long before the hope exhibition was ever conceived. But like both Lasworth’s and Feldman’s works, Chen’s photo demonstrates how a “closed” vista can summon an effect of hope much more powerfully than outright “showing” ever could.

Here is a fisherman who, with his intense posture, his taut fishing pole, and his sun-bleached hat, calls to mind ancient associations: the humble fishermen at the Sea of Galilee, “fishers of men,” and, more generally, the “working man,” who labors and provides for those he loves. These associations come together in a picture that hides what it shows, and shows what it hides.

The fisherman seeks sustenance from the water, but we can’t see the broad expanse he’s fishing from. Instead we see a high, blue, wave-shaped wall that symbolizes water (points toward it), but nevertheless covers it up. It is this very “closing” that opens our mind to grander themes — of “life-giving waters,” of oceanic vastness, of life arising from the depths.

Photography has sometimes been considered the most literal and unimaginative of media, but in this photo we see why this perception is so wrong. We are given free reign to imagine what must lie behind the “surface” view. The presence of a bird’s nest just below the fisherman must have seemed like such a lucky coincidence for the photographer! Just like the wall, it hides abundant life behind a visual barrier, and complements the meaning of the piece.

 


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Department Highlights

from the president
Anticipation
President Philip Eaton reminds us that God's promise to “do something new” creates and sustains our hope.

campus
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alumni
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Samuel Lin ’65 was named SPU Alumnus of the Year for a lifetime of service.

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Falcon women’s soccer had 23 straight wins in 2007–08 season; was in Final Four.

my response
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SPU Professor Susan VanZanten Gallagher on Emily Dickinson’s Poem #314 and “Hope.”

Response art
The Advent of Breathing
SPU Professor Christen Mattix on “The Advent of Breathing.”