Project 06 of 17
St. Peter's Lutheran Church
Churches · Cochrane, Alberta
Eighteen takes. Seven and a half minutes in the room.
St.
Peter's began as a mission congregation about thirty years ago and still calls itself the country church in the city — on a road named for a country singer, in a town that has grown from roughly twelve thousand people to thirty-seven thousand around it. Atom2Adam Studio filmed the sanctuary in eighteen takes, every one of them from the floor. The whole shoot ran seven minutes and thirty-one seconds by the camera's own clock. Nothing was moved and nothing was staged; the flowers on the table are the flowers that were on the table. The room carries a seal at either end — Luther's rose above the doors, and three crosses in glass above everything else.
- Subject
- St. Peter's Lutheran Church, 73 George Fox Trail, Cochrane, Alberta — a mission congregation about thirty years old that calls itself the country church in the city.
- Intent
- Show the room the way a visitor meets it: through the doors, down the aisle, to the window.
- Seen
- Three crosses in coloured glass, a tomb with its stone rolled aside, a green frontal and two lit candles, cut flowers, clear arched windows down both walls, a drum kit, two screens and rows of stacking chairs.
- Made
- Eight films and ten frames from eighteen interior takes, one camera on the floor, nothing staged. Seven minutes and thirty-one seconds from the first take to the last, by the camera's own clock.
I
The glass
The window above the chancel.
The window is one picture read left to right: three crosses on a hill, a tomb cut into the rock with its stone rolled aside, a figure in white and red rising above them, and figures below with their hands raised. Every other window in the room is clear glass in a plain pointed arch; the only other coloured glass in the building is a roundel at the far end, above the doors.
In, until the glass is all there is.
The hill, the crosses, and the stone rolled aside.
II
The table
Back from the table, at half speed.
The frontal is green, worked with wheat and a cross, and the banner beside the window is green too. Green is the colour Lutheran churches hang through the long season after Pentecost, which is where the middle of September falls. The candles were lit before anyone arrived with a camera.
The chancel, held.
A country church in a town that keeps becoming a city.
Wheat and a cross, two candles, cut flowers.
III
The chairs
The floor, from the chancel end.
The seats are not pews. They are upholstered chairs in rows, and chairs stack — so the floor can be cleared, which a room with pews can never do. On a bright morning the clear arched windows down both walls do all the lighting there is.
Across the rows, the light coming in sideways.
Four arches, and the light they let in.
IV
The room
One take: the window, then the whole room.
One take does the entire argument by itself. It opens with the window filling the frame and pulls back until the vault, both banners, the screens, the drum kit and the whole floor of chairs are in it. The ceiling follows the roof, so the room is tallest exactly where the window is.
The sanctuary, whole.
Eighteen takes. Seven and a half minutes in the room. Nothing moved.
V
The door
Around to the back, and the seal above the doors.
The church stands at 73 George Fox Trail. Cochrane named that road on 21 July 1995 for George Fox, who grew up on a cattle ranch northwest of the town and went on to nine Big Country Awards, three JUNOs and the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame. He asked for Trail rather than Road — the trail of the Fox.
A black cross, a red heart, a white rose: Luther's own seal.
The doors at the back; the aisle they open onto.
The way in, at the pace a person walks it.
Detail → Whole
St. Peter's Lutheran Church ends. 17 projects in the collection.
