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Photo Artstor
NYC Sept 11, 2001

Artstor
Lincoln Memorial, DC

"In this temple as int he hearts of the people for whom he saved the union the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever"

 

These two photographs reflect some of the many themes and tensions we’ll explore through our spring term course: Forget Me Not: Visual Culture of Historic & Religious Memorials.  In the first photo we see people gathered around temporary shrines consisting of flowers, candles, poems and other ephemera.  These votive shrines are an expression of the grief and confusion felt immediately around the loss of 2,000+ innocent lives on Sept 11 2001 in NYC.  The other photograph is of a well-considered and carefully designed marble memorial to Abraham Lincoln dating to 1915-22.  This permanent and monumental sculpture, as well as the built environment in which it is housed, commemorates the life of an American leader. While these photographs capture two extremely different examples of memorial culture and its visual expression, they share one central underpinning: loss, which will be a central theme throughout the course.

 As the inscription at the Lincoln memorial reveals, memorial culture deals directly with issues of death, loss, absence, sacrality, and, of course, memory. 

How do we remember that which is gone, and what about it do we choose to remember? 

This blog is a place for us to address, as creatively as possible, not only the themes of the course, but the feelings and emotions that may come up for students as we process this material.

more to come...