Crucified Stormtrooper : Wounds that Abide

Art Below’s Stations of the Cross exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook comprises fourteen different works on the theme of Crucifixion. Ryan Callanan’s ‘Crucified Stormtrooper’ has, if press reports can be believed, proved challenging for some of my fellow parishioners, one of whom is reported on the pages of the Daily Telegraph describing the piece as “a bit silly.” The paper claims that the image of a life size body strapped to a cross placed in the church in a central location was too distracting during our services in Lent.

Seeking to visually sanitize the space around the altar (a Henry Moore sculpture which itself proved to be more than a bit controversial when it was installed), the Crucified Stormtrooper was moved to a corner of the church behind the organ console and placed next to Paul Benney’s ‘Dying Slave’.

I am thankful that the piece wasn’t removed from the exhibition. Like each work on display, individually both ‘Crucified Stormtrooper’ and ‘Dying Slave’ are beautiful and thought provoking. Placed together, they seem to take on an extra dimension - creating a dialogue about our own mortality and relationship with body image - and the extent to which our minds and bodies are a legible witness to our faith. These themes are explored in Chapter 5 of Ben Quash’s Book ‘Abiding’ : Wounds that Abide. The reaction of my anonymous friend at church and the subsequent act of moving the Crucified Stormtrooper has meant that all of us, as parishioners and visitors to the exhibition, are bound up in this dialogue.

At first glance the Stormtrooper appears superhuman - it’s unblemished armour not punctured by nails. Held in place by some sort of forcefield, it seems to be floating; mocking Christ (and therefore us) by cheating death. In his book ‘Abiding,’ Ben Quash equates superheroes with supermodels and draws parallels with the continuing battle against our own mortality - not only in the sense of cosmetic treatments that promise to hold back the ageing process, but also our need to control our public persona, eliminating signs of weakness at the click of a button. Ben Quash says “The bodies of superheroes and supermodels cannot witness to the self-giving of the crucified one....they refuse the fact that bodies must die.”

But the Stormtrooper isn’t a solitary death-cheating superhuman figure. There are legion upon legion of Stormtroopers on the Death Star; no differentiation, no untidiness, no anomalies. An un-spontaneous, standardised, sanitized sect where imperfections are invisible; agents of the Dark Side concealed behind a pure white armour. Perhaps the Stormtrooper is us - at least that part of us which seeks to erase our wounds and create an artificial, air-brushed association with one another? Is it this element of our psyche we see being crucified here? 

“Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:25). 

Does the lolling head of the Stormtrooper convey the hopelessness of its skin-deep sanctity? A hide which hides - but cannot completely erase - its wounded, hurting and frail self?

In his personal reflection, Reverend Jonathan Evens, who invited Art Below to host the exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook, suggested that we are all on the dark side, like the Stormtroopers - but that God’s love for us is such that; “He becomes a stormtrooper in order that, through his death, he can take the darkness onto himself and enable us to live in the light. That is the heartbeat of Christianity.”

There is hope for us all - as Ben Quash reminds us “Christianity redefines beauty so as to make room for wounds” - both visible and invisible.

Next to the Crucified Stormtrooper, Paul Benney’s Dying Slave could not be a more visible image of human frailty; naked and limp, suspended over a whirlpool of deep water. There is a beauty in vulnerability. But, like the Crucified Stormtrooper, there seems to be a deeper message. Maybe this spent slave isn’t a symbol of revulsion or body hatred - but one of hope? The figure appears to be changing state; just as Gregory of Nyssa describes the radiant relics of his sister, Saint Macrina (as retold by Ben Quash in his book), a glow of firelight can be seen behind the figure, its sinuous hands beginning to dissolve into flames.  

Who is this Dying Slave? According to St Paul, we are all slaves - either to human masters or to Christ: “For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters. In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God.”

Around the figure, fires can be seen descending into the water, their heat creating vapour. Flesh emerges out of water and becomes fire, fire sinks into water and turns the water into vapour, which eventually returns to earth as water. A cycle of resurrection and renewal which is a gift from God - a gift that reminds us of the connection between our fragile bodies and our fragile earth, in all its beautiful imperfection. Either side of the Dying Slave meteorites of dark matter fall from the sky. Perhaps this is the rubbish that St Paul says he has shed, in order to gain Christ?

“For [Christ’s] sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.....I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him on his death, if I may somehow attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3.8b, 10-11)

In telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus explains that to attain resurrection from the dead it is necessary to “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"  (Luke 10:27). Worship involves mind, body and spirit. Perhaps then it is no surprise that St Paul described his own body as being as legible a witness to his faith as his many letters? The Crucified Stormtrooper and Dying Slave remind us that whether our marks of faith are visible to the naked eye or are contained deep within, they make us the unique person that God created.

The apparent controversy over the Crucified Stormtrooper also reminds us how difficult it is to “Love your neighbour as yourself” in a society where love and acceptance is predicated on conforming to visual norms.

Links

Thank you to Reverend Jonathan Evens and Reverend Stephen Baxter for allowing the Stations of the Cross Exhibition to be exhibited at St Stephen Walbrook, which can be seen at the church until March 23^rd 2018.

Crucified Stormtrooper statue in church exhibition relocated after parishioners complain – The Daily Telegraph : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/13/crucified-stormtrooper-statue-church-exhibition-relocated-parishioners/

Reverend Jonathan Evens reflects on The Crucified Stormtrooper in this address given at the exhibition’s Private View: http://joninbetween.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/art-below-stations-of-cross-private-view.html