Dr. I-Shian (Ivan) Suen
Chair of the Urban and Regional Planning Program in VCU
As I am considering a career in urban planning I decided to definitely meet with people within the urban planning in VCU. Luckily I met with the chair of the program. He declined my request to be part of my committee as he is on other students committees already.
Ivan encouraged me to pursue a career in urban planning, as what I do now is research in this direction. He praised my photographs for their accurate observations and pointing to very specific issues but emphasized that they are interpretations. Urban planning goes into action for fixing these issues, or at least attempts to. My photographs show the surface of decisions and actions taken, they don't show what is beneath this surface: the reasons for the issues depicted.
From this conversation I gained the perspective of a non artist, whose ideas of aesthetics are based on everyday function. What is the direct application of this body of work, he would ask. His point made me understand better the writing of Bob Thall towards his photographic book The Perfect City where he discusses the definition of photo documentary. Although the work is about the relation between the public and urban spaces, it emphasizes on the aesthetics that are the product of these relations. Some weird beauty... (I am very skeptic about muddy adjectives).
My work stands between two realms, one of the fine arts and another of designing functional space and I feel that I have to find where exactly they overlap.
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