EXHIBITION SHOWCASES 9/11 LIVING MEMORIALS

The New School and USDA Forest Service present Land-markings: 12 Journeys through 9/11 Living Memorials
October 6-27, 2006, at Federal Hall in New York

NEW YORK, September 7, 2006 — After the attacks of September 11, 2001, hundreds of individuals and groups across the country created living memorials, ranging from single tree-plantings to the creation of new parks to the restoration of existing forests.  From October 6 to 27, 2006, The New School and USDA Forest Service will highlight these efforts in the multimedia exhibition Land-markings: 12 Journeys through 9/11 Living Memorials, which brings documentary photo, video, and archival information on hundreds of 9/11 Living Memorial Sites together for the first time.  The exhibition will be presented in the newly restored National Park Service Federal Hall National Memorial in downtown Manhattan at 26 Wall Street, and will open to the public in conjunction with the re-opening of this landmark space.

“September 11 memorials reflect traditional, almost universal, mourning rituals and beliefs,” said Erika Svendsen of the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, who along with co-researcher Lindsay Campbell has extensively documented 9/11 memorials by photographing sites and interviewing their creators. “We envision this exhibition as a step along a much longer path of understanding of not just how we memorialize events and individuals, but how we interact with our public landscapes. We hope that this exhibition will invite reflection, response, and debate.”

In 2002, The USDA Forest Service initiated its Living Memorials Project at the request of Congress in order to both provide funding support to a number of community memorial projects and to understand changes in the use of trees and the landscape in response to this unprecedented tragedy.  Through this project, the Forest Service has created a National Registry that serves as an on-line inventory of nearly 700 community-based, living memorials.

Curated and presented by Parsons The New School for Design and The Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School in partnership with the USDA Forest Service, the exhibition compresses four years of research on these living memorials into 12 digitally authored “journeys,” which connect the common threads of expression and hope found in these widely diverse projects.

“The New School is committed to exploring the intersection of design and the pressing social and political issues of our day,” said Bob Kerrey, president of The New School, who served on the 9/11 Commission. “Living Memorials demonstrates how the design of our environment can play an important role in expressing and coming to terms with powerful emotions.”

The exhibition starts by showcasing living memorials in the immediate New York region: sunflower plantings in found spaces in New York City, ranging from window boxes to vacant lots; a memorial trail of street trees created in the South Bronx; and permanent memorials of various types and sizes created in the vista of the former World Trade Center.  The exhibition then progresses to living memorials in Boston and New England; in Somerset County, PA, the site of the Flight 93 plane crash; and in the Washington, D.C., region.  It then highlights nationwide efforts to create living memorials in forests and schools, such as the Friendship and Tolerance Garden created at Whispering Pines Elementary School in Boca Raton, Fla.

The exhibition concludes with an exploration of memorials found nationwide at both traditional town centers, as well as at new civic grounds where people work, shop, pray, and drive, reflecting the changing landscape of the American city.  Among the memorials represented in this section of the exhibition is a garden at the TJX Corporation in Framingham, MA, which lost seven female employees who were bound for California on September 11. 

 “Through these 12 journeys, which spiral out from the three crash sites, we’re trying to capture the spirit of living memorials,” said exhibition curator and Parsons faculty member Brian McGrath, who teaches architecture and urban design. “Memorials aren’t always a flag or a heroic eagle—in these cases they’re about the land and how people mark their own space over time.  These sites illuminate the immense variety of voices and faces of the people who helped create these memorials—from children to veterans to community gardeners.”  The exhibition uses video layering techniques developed by Phu Duong of Approach to interpret these remembrances through a collage of images overlaid with researchers’ narratives.

All the memorials created from 2001 to 2004 are displayed on an interactive national map, designed by McGrath and fellow Parsons faculty member Mark Watkins, which is on view in the exhibition. This map will continue to be updated by the Forest Service as new site locations are identified, registered, and uploaded to the website, www.livingmemorialsproject.net.

“This exhibition creates a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the intricate relationship between humans and nature,” said Joel Towers, associate provost of The New School and director of the university’s Tishman Environment and Design Center (TED).  “Part of our work at TED is to expand how we define that relationship to include cities, people, and the structures and networks that we construct. Therefore, we will be working with Parsons first-year students to use the exhibition as a laboratory for studying the innovative methods used by researchers and designers to collect, analyze, and present these powerful and often personal projects.  Our goal is to broaden both their environmental and design literacy.”

Related Publication
Land-markings: 12 Journeys through 9/11 Living Memorials, a 52-page exhibition catalogue by Erika S. Svendsen and Lindsay K. Campbell of the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, will serve as a guide to the exhibition, and will be available to the public free of charge at Federal Hall while supplies last.


About the Organizers
Parsons The New School for Design, located in the heart of New York City, is one of the most prestigious and comprehensive degree-granting colleges of art and design in the nation. Parsons has been a forerunner in the field of art and design since its founding in 1896. A vital part of The New School, the university it has been affiliated with since 1980, Parsons’ rigorous programs and distinguished faculty embrace curricular innovation, pioneer new uses of technology, and instill in students a global perspective in design. For more information, visit www.parsons.newschool.edu.

The Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School (TED) oversees the development of environmental studies at the university. The center supports design-led research alongside historical and social inquiry and places an emphasis on innovation within the context of cultural, economic, and ecological factors. It works to establish environmental literacy as central to an undergraduate education at The New School and to frame environmental challenges at the intersection of design, and the social and natural sciences. For more information visit www.newschool.edu/tedc.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service is a Federal agency that manages public lands in national forests and grasslands. The Forest Service is also the largest forestry research organization in the world, and provides technical and financial assistance to state and private forestry agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community groups. The motto of the agency is “Caring for the Land and Serving People.”