Your Turn: 9/11/09 and Rebirth of the WTC

On this eighth anniversary of 9/11, I’m interested in the photo-documentation of the World Trade Center reconstruction by WTC Documentary Arts, a partnership between the developer, Silverstein Properties, and an arts mentoring organization working with emerging talent.

The image above was created by a young photojournalist, Nicole Tung. You can see a larger set of Nicole’s WTC images, as well as those by mentored photographers Joe Woolhead and Vicky Roy, at this sales and exhibit site. Nicole’s website also has more images from the project.

The WTC project has a budget of $180K and plans to use the images for an exhibition and a book.

I’m interested in your thoughts on the imagery and “vocabulary” here; the messages these images convey about the reconstruction of the WTC and about post-9/11 America; and also your sense of how Nicole — who has already distinguished herself with many socially-conscious projects (1, 2) — has managed the corporate and commercial parameters of working for the developer.

(images: ©Nicole Tung/WTC Documentary Arts. image 1: WTC Memorial Workers. image 2: Worker at Rest on Excavator. image 3: Worker with Lunch Pail. )