Lena (Leqi Chen)

Interpretive Essay

Integrative Studio

Derek Haffar

09/11/2017

On the right side of this photograph, a black girl of about 7 or 8 years old is sitting on a desk and looking straightly at the camera with no expression. On the left side there is a middle-aged man, with his head down and only half of his face shown to us, bending forward to hold the girl’s leg. He seems to be helping her with the stockings or shoes.

The girl has been deliberately dressed, judging from the bow on her hair and the short, tiny pigtails beside her ears. She looks decent in those stockings and MaryJane shoes. Yet the dark, military-style coat is somehow larger than her size. Besides her, the man is in a black suit with subtle pinstripes. A little of the inner white shirt can be seen from his wrists. Since his face is in shadows, I can hardly tell his facial expression. The upper half of the picture is a few women in the background. They are in winter coats, and two of them wear big hats which look much like the Russian Cossack style. Talking and laughing, they are apparently comfortable with where they are. By contrast, the girl appears to be unhappy; she is not even smiling.

To her, the man seems to be reliable because she doesn’t show any defensive gestures. She can be a student waiting for someone to pick her up after school. Perhaps the man is her school teacher. It’s also possible that they haven’t met each other before. Maybe she gets lost with her parents in the railway station, the man sees her and then brings her here. Where will she go next? The only one who knows the answer is the man. But his face is so dark and vague that he seems distant from us. What will he say to the girl? Is she going to be all right? I can’t help but hope so.

left: original art work (one in the photo series of Martin Luther King’s Life)

right: my sketch