Please join us for the first public online talk of 2024 of the Society of American Archivists' (SAA) Crisis, Disaster, and Tragedy Response Working Group (CDTRWG).
Cautious Balance: Collecting and Presenting Trauma at 9/11's Historical Epicenter
Jan Seidler Ramirez, Executive Vice President of Collections & Chief Curator, 9/11 Memorial and Museum
Tuesday 14th May 2024, 12pm EDT
RSVP: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMtduusrz8oG9PApm-aA2kaPes40vCNx__n#/registration
Summary
It has been ten years since the 9/11 Memorial Museum opened to the public, thirteen years since the dedication of the outdoor Memorial "Reflecting Absence", and nearly 23 years since the globally-witnessed terror attacks heralding the start of the 21st century. Although a "born after" generation now eclipses those with living memories of September 11, flashpoints and sensitivities remain unrelenting at the namesake museum charged with archiving the evidence of these violent events and interpreting their convulsive impact. This acute awareness is influenced by the Museum's location in the cavity of the destroyed World Trade Center – an authentic historical site that was a high-value target and symbol for the perpetrators, an epicenter of collective trauma, and both a heroic battlefield and hallowed ground for countless others. This talk will focus on the continued push and pull, and situational awareness of presenting collection material born from a mass atrocity at a setting of complex emotional meaning for bereaved relatives, friends and co-workers of 9/11's 2977 victims, survivors of the attacks, and the expanding population of Ground Zero responders who have fallen ill or died from toxic exposures and injuries sustained during the 2001-02 rescue, recovery and clean-up operations. Curatorially, what is the balance between documenting the depth of horror that defined September 11th – which seems necessary to account for the day's immense global repercussions, including the mounting death tally of 9/11's health-fallout victims – and the offset mission of foregrounding the stories of compassion, courage, resolve, hope and healing associated with September 12th, and beyond?
Biography
Jan Seidler Ramirez (Ph.D., American Studies, Boston University) is the founding Chief Curator and Executive Vice President of Collections at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City. Under her guidance, the Memorial Museum's collection has grown to include many thousands of objects, artworks, photographs, films, oral histories and audio artifacts, architectural relics, archives, and other primary evidence connected to 9/11. Prior to her 2006 appointment, she served as Vice President and Museum Director at the New-York Historical Society. Previously, she was Chief Curator and Deputy Director at the Museum of the City of New York. Dr. Ramirez has written, lectured, curated exhibitions, and taught widely on subjects related to New York history, rapid-response collecting, and preserving and interpreting traumatic materials and their associated human stories.
CDTRWG maintains and updates SAA's Documenting in Times of Crisis: A Resource Kit; develops and provides immediate and ongoing resources and response assistance to archivists, allied cultural heritage professionals, and their communities in times of tragedies, disasters, or other crises; and builds partnerships with organizations focused on relief efforts and cultural stewardship and preservation. As part of that partnership building, we are conducting a series of public talks in 2023 to hear about related work.
The talk will not be recorded, but a reflective summary of it will be available on the CDTRWG's website soon after.
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Rebecca Tinker
Binding Assistant
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
New Haven CT
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