2005

single channel silent SD video loop

dimensions variable

total run time 1 minute, 18 seconds

 

Seventeen Grand Narratives for a new Grand Canyon was edited from footage shot over a three week period in early 2003 at the location the media had often described colloquially as "Ground Zero," that being lower Manhattan at the site of the World Trade Center. While wishing to avoid making a work explicitly referencing the 9/11 tragedy the artist was intrigued by peculiar tourist activities at his front door. Among the activities was the insistence on recording "what wasn't there": the empty air where the twin towers once stood. It seemed that people from around the globe—standing in front of what was a large crater in the ground—were busy creating their own "grand narratives," even as the bureaucratic powers that be continued to haggle politically over the rebuilding efforts at the site amidst conflicting attempts at defining just what the hallowed grounds should represent to local communities and beyond.

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