world trade center memorial
Lives were lost. Innocence disturbed. Perspective abandoned.
Too quickly-- before the wound had healed-- before history was re-imagined-- and before the final battles fought, a memorial masquerading as a monument was summoned.
A rush to set the past to rest, our imagination held hostage by fear and emotion.
Yet a memorial to the dead should not itself be dead. Carving deep holes in the ground beneath the footprints, open only to the sky, dwarfing people with their Herculean scale, would no doubt inspire awe and contemplation. But it speaks of language of the past, memorializing death over life, imposing solemnity on those wishing to celebrate freedom, vainly hoping to shut out time and pretend such horrors will remain rooted in the past.
A fitting memorial would pulse with energy, a living place commemorating thousands of lives cut short. And a reminder that to celebrate life, is to celebrate change.
Site-specific art is always the most compelling, and this Memorial proposal resonates with its celestial orientation by installing a series of mirrors on the south-facing exposure of the Freedom Tower. These mirrors constantly track the sun or the moon, reflecting their energy to the original Trade Center footprints and down into the Memorial basin. Every day, at the hour and minutes of the attacks, the mirrors are programmed to gently lift their illumination from the two footprints, proceed respectfully along the streets, towards the river and into the sky. Moving in concert, they form a virtual lighthouse sweeping a beam of hope and memory across landscape.
One diaphanous beam of light uniting the Memorial, the Freedom Tower and the New York skyline into a single, compelling whole.
August 2002