We're One House: Large Format Photography

January 25–March 22, 2009
Porch Gallery

Reception: February 12, 5:30–7 p.m.

An exhibition of large format photographs made by undergraduate students in a Fall 2008 class at the Center for Documentary Studies, taught by Lisa Satterwhite.

WE’RE ONE HOUSE
Congressman John Lewis, a student of nonviolence and a revered civil rights leader, has served Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for the past twenty-two years. Though Lewis has witnessed atrocities many of us cannot imagine and survived countless moments of lost hope and the death of friends and family, he remains steadfast in his vision of the Beloved Community. He will tell anyone who will listen, “It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, Latino, Asian American, or Native American. We’re one people, we’re one house, we’re one family.”

This year in Large Format Photography, we gathered our energies on the present moment, the intangible thread that connects us all. It has been my deepest privilege to watch over my students this year as they discovered a new secret or path to self-understanding and then made a photograph of it. Our group encouraged each other in remarkably diverse directions yet remained tied together. When we slowed down, we listened better.

We hear mention of the arts as the touchstone of our society, the underpinning, the rock. But it takes nerve to be one who ushers in art, to be one who feels like an artist but who has no idea what to do or how to honor that conviction. When we work, if we hang on to what’s precious, then something more beautiful than we could ever have imagined will appear out of nowhere. Here’s to those who walk a path into the dark to help others find their way, as John Lewis would have it. We celebrate our house. Our family.

Lisa Satterwhite
Instructor, Large Format Photography, Fall 2008







banner image:

Partial view of the Lyndhurst Gallery, one of four exhibition spaces at CDS. Photograph by Christoper Sims.


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