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We all know the drill when travelling: no flammables, no sharp objects, and all liquids decanted into little 100ml containers. But do you remember travelling before 2001, when flight regulations were much more lax? It all had to do with 9/11, of course.
On the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York, HKI Gallery hosts ‘The World Trade Center: Before Memory’, an exhibition examining life before the tragedy. Hong Kong artist Gretchen So took these monochrome photographs on medium-format film in the early 1990s, when the Twin Towers were still standing as part of New York’s everyday cityscape.
So never intended to memorialise anything, and her photographs don’t necessarily present the World Trade Center as the subject. Instead, the outlines of the two skyscrapers simply exist in the frame as she captured New York’s streets, bridges, waterfronts, and public spaces – just an intrinsic part of the city as So saw it.
It was only when looking back at the negatives 25 years later that she realised her photographs have acquired new meanings and identities in a post-9/11 world that she hadn’t set out to create. Her documentation of urban life in New York had become records of a period in history that preceded a pivotal turning point.
‘The World Trade Center: Before Memory’ is on show in HKI Gallery until October 31, and admission is free. Go visit and think about how the 9/11 incident has affected you, where you were when the news broke, and if you remember life before it happened.
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