On Wednesday, September 9, a commemorative public art installation designed with voices of the 9/11 family, survivor, responder community was unveiled in the skies over New York Harbor. The free public act of reflection and unity is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation of the Arts.
2,977 lights rose over New York Harbor and rebuilt the Twin Towers at full architectural scale, one light for each life lost on 9/11, in a community gathering of remembrance.
The aerial artwork was shaped by a collective of voices from the 9/11 community, including Brenda Berkman (FDNY First Responder, Artist), Tim Brown (FDNY First Responder 1993 and 2001), Terry Strada (family of Tom Strada, President of 9/11 Families United), Jim Smith (family of NYPD Moira Smith), and Genevieve Siller (Daughter of Stephen Siller). Its members acknowledge that no one can speak for all.
Designed in dialogue with the iconic “Tribute in Light”, “2,977 Lights Over New York Harbor” suspends 2,977 individual lights in the night sky as a breathing constellation of lives. The lights gathered in a helix, swirling upward before assembling into the Twin Towers at full architectural scale.
The helix in “2,977 Lights Over New York Harbor” intentionally recalls the THINK team’s World Cultural Center, the unbuilt proposal for the rebuilt World Trade Center: a civic and cultural vision rather than another office development, its open latticework towers rising around and above the original footprints without touching them, carrying public space into the sky. The installation carries that civic proposition back into the air above the harbor.
The commemorative art work is a collaboration between artists, producers, and 9/11 families, survivors, and responders; which includes creative director Addison Mehr, producers Sky Elements, designer Yan Paul Dubbelman, artistic advisors Studio Drift, and Shigeru Ban and Dean Maltz.
The work is scored with recorded music chosen for reflection. Featuring works by Philip Glass, along with “On The Transmigration of Souls” from John Adams, written for the victims of 9/11. Additional works were provided by Max Richter, including “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks.
Photo Craig Barritt / Getty Images and Video Hayes Walsh