Remembering September 11

here is new york collection, School of Visual Arts Archives/Visual Arts Foundation
here is new york collection, School of Visual Arts Archives/Visual Arts Foundation

Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. It is a day of pious remembrance of the thousands who were killed in that awful act of terrorism, of the courage and care of first responders, of the brutal aftermath of continued terrorism and the war against it that has scarred countless lives around the globe.

This week a photography exhibition marks this anniversary at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery at Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts.

here is new york: a democracy of photographs is an exhibition of photographs made in response to the events of September 11, 2001. What began as one photo hung in the window of a SoHo storefront directly after the attacks became a means for everyone to have a voice beyond the conventional networks of reportage. Marking the fifteenth anniversary of September 11, this is the first time the photographs have been exhibited in Connecticut. At Wesleyan, the exhibition will replicate the democratic setting of the original exhibition, featuring photographs given to the Davison Art Center at Wesleyan University by Charles Traub and Aaron Traub in 2014.

Charles Traub and I will have a public conversation about the exhibition at the gallery on Tuesday, September 13th at 4:30 pm.

Photographs are a crucial way of directing attention, of creating a recollection, of paying respect. They seldom speak for themselves, but speak they do. Mark the day with remembrance in ways that feel appropriate. A democracy of memory, if you will.