Good Friday

drawings by Isaac Tin Wei Lin / lighting design by Melissa Choi

April 10, 2020 / July 2020

Good Friday was the first "special service" that City Church and Liberti streamed online, about a month after we stopped meeting in person for worship. Videos of musicians alternated with a live feed of pastors and members of the congregation reading scripture, praying, and extinguishing candles in their homes. Artist Isaac Tin Wei Lin contributed a collection of drawings from which the worship director chose several images to appear on screen throughout the service, sometimes during music and sometimes during silence.

During the following summer, Lin compiled his drawings into a zine, which he printed and distributed to members of the City Church congregation -- a tangible artifact during a season of virtual encounters. In the zine is this introduction, Isaac writes:

'FRGMNT' is a zine of my ballpoint pen drawings. For this project I collected some drawings, which are part of a larger body of work made in the past couple of years, that relate to ideas I associate with Good Friday. For me, drawing is a form of meditation, a visual diary and a way to explore Uncertainty. It is an important part of my studio practice where I work out ideas and compositions that sometimes turn into paintings. Although I am not an illustrator the center spread is a Crown of Thorns, an obvious image choice for Good Friday. I think about 'Thorns' as a metaphor of Clinging and Repulsion and how that pertains to our relationship with Christ at the moment of crucifixion. Thorns warn people to stay away but if unheeded we become enmeshed. I hope this collection of drawings can be a Visual guide for Good Friday and help us contemplate and understand ourselves/each other, our life together and our relationship with the Trinity. Please think on these ideas while looking at 'FRGMNT':

Deconstruction / Brokenness / Assemblage - putting together and taking apart Pieces

Caution - wariness and uncertainty

Binding - self-protection

Mystery - unknowable and unnamable

Growth - natural but harmful

Fear

In order to create a greater sense of visual cohesion and engagement for the online Good Friday service, Melissa Choi conceived of a lighting design for the musician videos. Each musician received a dark backdrop, a smart bulb, and instructions for creating the desired effect. She writes:

Good Friday during a pandemic with stay-at-home orders really limited my options for creativity but also created an exciting new means of communication -- Zoom! I watch a lot of horror films, and red is an obvious choice when depicting themes of horror. I wanted to create a somber and sinister mood by simply using lighting and black clothing that could be easily replicated at home, highlighting people's faces. The keyboardist Christopher McDonald really nailed this with his disembodied head and hands.

The full video of the Good Friday service is available here.