27 February 2002

Traveling September 11 Photo Exhibition Unveiled in Washington

Washington -- Speaking at a photo exhibition documenting the tragic aftermath of terrorist attacks that destroyed the twin World Trade Center towers in New York on September 11, Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "Let us once again dedicate ourselves to the proposition that terrorism must be defeated."

Powell made his comments at the February 27 launching of New York photographer Joel Meyerowitz's collection called "After September 11: Images from Ground Zero." The show, held in the ornate Ben Franklin Room of the State Department, comprises 28 photos, chosen from among 5,000 the artist took at the site of the twin towers' destruction in lower Manhattan.

"Ground Zero" was the term rescuers and cleanup crews came to call the roughly 17-acre (6.8-hectare) area in the financial district where the towers once stood.

After viewing the photos himself, Powell said, "Terrorism must be destroyed." And he added: "We will give it the energy, the time, the effort, the persistence, and the patience necessary to make that come true. That is President Bush's determined objective; it is certainly mine; and I know it is the objective of each and every person in this room, and of all Americans and freedom-loving people around the world."

The organizer of the exhibition, the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), is sponsoring a traveling tour of 27 sets of the Meyerowitz collection in order to allow as many people as possible worldwide to view what the artist called a "historical record" illustrating "an incredible enterprise of healing."

The photos depict rescue and recovery efforts following the assault by terrorists who hijacked two fuel-laden airliners and steered them into the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. About 2,800 people, many of them foreigners, were buried under millions of tons of rubble when raging fires melted the skyscrapers' steel frames, causing their total collapse.

Within an hour of the New York attacks another group of terrorists hijacked a third passenger airliner, slamming it into the Pentagon, across the Potomac River from Washington. A fourth commandeered aircraft crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside after its passengers battled hijackers.

Following the Washington opening, an overseas launching of the photo show will take place in London on March 5. The United Kingdom was chosen as a premier site because it had more citizens killed in the World Trade Center attacks than any other foreign nation. The exhibition will be launched in at least four other capitals, including Abuja and Dar es Salaam on March 11, the six-month anniversary of the attack.

Assistant Secretary of State Patricia S. Harrison, who also attended the unveiling, said the images of destruction and recovery were meant to "convey to foreign audiences the physical and human dimensions of the recovery effort, images that are less well known overseas than those of the destruction of September 11."

Turning to the photographer, Harrison said: "Joel Meyerowitz captures the resilience and the spirit of Americans and of freedom-loving people everywhere. His images remind the viewer of the true face of terrorism and its threat to humankind -- a threat that must be combated."

Harrison, a New Yorker like Powell and Meyerowitz, said the exhibition is a reminder that "terrorists can attack again anywhere, any city around the globe, at anytime."

For ECA, she said, the exhibition "underscores that an investment in educational and cultural exchange, an investment in mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States and other countries, is truly an investment in everyone's homeland security."

Meyerowitz told his audience, mainly government officials, "In the moments after the collapse of the twin towers I was overcome by a deep impulse to help, to save, to soothe." Noting that he was first rebuffed from taking photos by police because they said it was a crime scene, Meyerowitz added, "To me, no photographs meant no history. I decided at that moment that I would find my way in and make an archive for the City of New York."

After help from the Museum of the City of New York, the artist said he and his camera were granted access to the site. "It is a privilege to work at Ground Zero," he noted, adding, "Everyone who works there has been transformed by the spirituality of the place."

Now, he said, "my task is to make a photographic record of the aftermath: the awesome spectacle of destruction; the reverence for the dead; the steadfast, painstaking effort of recovery; the life of those whose act of salvation has embedded itself deeply into the consciousness of all of us in America and around the world."

Museum Director Robert Macdonald touched on that record as he told those present, "Joel Meyerowitz's vivid photographs of this now sacred site, holding the remains of almost 3,000 souls, is part of an extensive photographic archive of the aftermath of September 11 being created by the Museum of the City of New York.

"The exhibition is a witness to the physical devastation caused by the terrorist attack on New York City. It also reaffirms the resolve of the American people to overcome their grief at the loss of human life and their determination to preserve the values that are central to our democracy."

As part of the State Department launching, Meyerowitz gave the press a brief walkthrough of his collection. Standing in front of a wide-shot photo of Ground Zero with remnants of the outer steel hull of one of the towers looking like a skeleton, Meyerowitz said, "I took this picture on my first night on the site."

He explained that for all his pictures at Ground Zero he used an old-fashioned 8x10 wooden box view camera, instead of a more modern automatic 35-millimeter device. "I wanted the authority of image" the older camera provided, he said, because "it resolves details much more finely."