Exhibition "Faces of Ground Zero" Reminds People of the Importance of Life

A photo exhibition entitled "Faces of Ground Zero – 10 Years Later" is currently underway in New York City's Time Warner Center. Marking the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the exhibition brings to life some of the extraordinary individuals who were personally affected by the tragedy.

CRI's correspondent Shen Ting has more.

The terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, which occurred nearly ten years ago, are an event that no one will be forgetting any time soon. It was a major event in world history, and one that has spurred artists, songwriters, authors and photographers to capture the moment in their own way.

Photographer Joe McNally chose to shift the focus from remembering tragedy to highlighting the people that were directly affected by the event. The exhibition, Faces of Ground Zero, features more than 50 original life-size photos of firefighters and other uniformed rescuers, families of victims, and survivors.

For each person, two photos are on display – one shot in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and the other, a recently captured image revealing where the subject is today and how 9/11 indelibly affected the subject's life. For the photographer, the exhibition allows him to contribute to the memory of all those affected by the tragic event.

"I think I was just trying to make a contribution. I'm not a firefighter or a police officer. I'm a photographer. How do you make some small contribution, somehow? I kind of hit on this project as something potentially worthwhile."

McNally said the first group of pictures was shot only ten days following the tragedy. When viewed alongside the second group of photographs taken ten years later, noticeable changes are instantly visible.

"Obviously, it was very stressful time. People were very emotional. But what I found ten years later was the folks that I've stayed in touch with, and came back and photographed them, there's amazing power of the human spirit. Lives are positive.

People are doing things. They're living their lives. They are going forward. And to me, there are tremendous upswings from that time. And certainly, visually, if you look at some of these folks and their pictures within weeks of 9/11, and you look at their pictures now, it's like two different people."

Juana Lomi, a paramedic working at a downtown hospital in Manhattan, is one of the featured figures in this photo exhibition. She was one of the first responders on the scene ten years ago.

"Our hospital, New York Downtown Hospital, was the hospital that received the most patients of all hospitals in the city, because we are only about three blocks away from the World Trade Center. That's the community we serve. So we received all kinds of patients, from those who were just lightly wounded to the really critical patients, all throughout the day. The hospital not only served the patients but was also like assisting people that were traumatized because of everything that happened."

Compared with the situation ten years ago, Lomi believes that people are more prepared to deal with an emergency of that scale, should one occur again, thanks to a greater amount of training and practice carried out by emergency service staff members.

"We continuously receive different training to make sure that we know how to respond in an emergency. I feel that we are aware that once something happens and you wake up and you try to correct the situation, this was totally new to all of us, not just the paramedics, firefighters, cops, anybody that was there. It was totally new. But I think we learnt a lot. And we are constantly getting trained to do that kind of work in an emergency response."

Judith Gardner is a local resident living in Queens, New York. She thinks highly of the exhibition, which evokes memories of those unforgettable days.

"It brings it back to me and it makes me reflect on the importance of the life and what that day means to the entire city of New York."

Michelle is a tourist visiting from the U.K. She happened to stumble across the exhibition as she visited the Time Warner Center. She said she admires the work, and praises the photographer's efforts in helping people remember something about the day.

"Absolutely incredible. People sometimes forget things too easily and go back to how things were, and you forget some of these people lost family members and friends. Although life goes on, you've still got to remember about these things, and never forget them."

Unlike Michelle, Rob Davidson is a photographer who's been following Joe McNally's work for some time. His visit to the exhibition was no accident. Rob hopes that the photographer can find a permanent home for his poignant images in the future.

"I'm really glad that the images have found a place to be displayed where the general public can come and see the stories, and it's fitting that it's so close to the tenth anniversary of September 11. I look forward to them finding a more permanent home and more people being able to see them in the future. I hope things can work out so that he can have a permanent display of these."

For CRI News, this is Shen Ting from New York.