*EPF512 09/13/2002
Meyerowitz Exhibit "Images from Ground Zero" Opens on Capitol Hill
(Photographer documents face of terrorism, will to recover) (800)

By Phyllis McIntosh
Special to the Washington File

A photo exhibit, "After September 11: Images from Ground Zero," which has been touring the world under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and American embassies, opened on Capitol Hill for viewing by the American public to mark the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States.

Congressman Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, hosted and opened the exhibit. Under Secretary of State Charlotte Beers and Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Patricia Harrison joined him. Special guests included Captain Dan Daly of the New York City Fire Department (NYFD), who has traveled with the exhibit to many cities around the world, and two NYFD chaplains -- including the first Muslim chaplain for the department -- who offered invocations.

Also attending the opening were six officials from a newly formed anti-terrorist unit in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who are on a State Department-sponsored tour of five American cities to discuss law enforcement and terrorism with U.S. officials.

In opening the exhibit, Congressman Hyde said that "we would only deceive ourselves if we were to believe that those events [of September 11, 2001] are now safely confined to the past. We will continue to live with them for all of our lives." Modern communications, he added, "have made possible the communal experience of tragedy. In this new age, distance will no longer spare us nor can an absence of ties insulate us from sorrow."

Under Secretary Beers called the exhibit an important step in America's effort "to reach out to a broader audience with a most compelling message."

The Ground Zero exhibit, featuring 27 dramatic images by noted American photographer and native New Yorker Joel Meyerowitz, has toured the world since last spring. By the end of 2002, the exhibit will have been shown in museums, libraries, art galleries, town halls, even subway stations, in 135 cities in 64 countries. In addition, there have been more than 17 million visits to the exhibit's web site www.911exhibit.state.gov.

"The reaction in all these venues has been the same -- stunned silence, deep concentration, often shock at the full horror of the destruction," said Assistant Secretary Harrison. "These photographs underscore the fact that terrorism is truly a common enemy."

Within weeks after September 11, 2001, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs worked with the Museum of the City of New York and photographer Meyerowitz to develop identical sets of photographs to tour throughout the world. On September 11, 2002, the exhibit opened simultaneously in more than 20 countries, including Australia, China, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe. It is slated to tour at least through March 2003.

Statements from people who have viewed the exhibit around the world indicate that it has had a profound impact. Harrison quoted Sahara Wahidy, a guide at the Afghanistan National Art Gallery in Kabul, where the exhibit was the first shown after the fall of the Taliban: "I show people here the destruction in America and it shows we are not so different. We understand the tragedy in America because we lived with tragedy under the Taliban and through years of war."

During the Capitol Hill ceremony, Harrison presented to Captain Daly an engraved fireman's helmet, a gift from the firemen of Ankara, Turkey, to the New York City Fire Department. Shown in Ankara last December, the photo exhibit so moved that city's fire chief that he assembled uniformed firemen for a memorial service at the U.S. embassy in honor of their New York colleagues.

In presenting the helmet, Harrison noted that thousands of people have turned out to see Captain Daly in cities he has visited with the exhibit. "You are America," she said.

In his remarks, Daly warned that "the rubble at Ground Zero is now cleared, but the evil of terrorism remains waiting only for an opportunity. All of us throughout the United States and throughout the world have to take proactive action towards prevention, protection, and peace. We owe this to ourselves, to our world, and most importantly, we owe this to our children."

The photo exhibit, displayed in the foyer of the Rayburn House Office Building through the week of September 11, is accompanied by mementos from the world tour, including the Ankara fire helmet, poems and commemorative plaques, an original music score from Ecuador, and visitor sign-in books, some of which include moving thoughts from those who viewed the photographs. One visitor in Abuja, Nigeria, wrote: "The horror is universal; the heroism American. Never again, we pray."

Assistant Secretary Harrison states that the exhibit, as a reminder that terrorists can strike again anywhere at any time, "underscores that an investment in educational and cultural exchange, in mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States and other countries, is truly an investment in everyone's homeland security."

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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