Brooklyn Artist Remembers 9/11 Using Missing-Person Posters
WILLIAMSBURG — Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a Brooklyn artist is bringing 144 never-before-seen photographs of missing-person posters into public view for the first time.
“Countenance: The 9/11 Missing Posters” features photographs taken by artist Phil Buehler in the days and weeks following the attacks. The exhibit is on display through Sept. 13 at Most Holy Trinity-St. Mary Church in Williamsburg.
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Buehler photographed about 500 missing-person posters throughout New York City after the attacks. He had the photographs developed and stored them in a box in his studio.
But for two decades, he said, he could not bring himself to open it.
“I couldn’t really be able to open the box for 20 years. It just brought it back too much,” Buehler said.
The photographs document a city covered with images of people whose families were desperately hoping they had survived.
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In the aftermath of the attacks, families and friends covered New York City with posters featuring photographs and information about their missing loved ones.
For many, the posters represented hope that those missing might still be found alive. Over time, however, they became reminders of those who died.
Olena Speranska, a co-curator of the exhibit, said that preserving the posters is especially important for younger generations who did not experience the attacks firsthand.
“When the towers fell down, it was impossible to survive, but this hope was shown through these posters made by their relatives, by their loved ones,” Speranska said.
She said the exhibit offers an opportunity to preserve that history for people who were not alive or were too young to remember Sept. 11, 2001.
“A whole generation was born after the tragedy of 9/11,” Speranska said.
Many of the missing posters were handmade, and some deteriorated after being exposed to the elements.
Buehler said photographs of the posters captured details that might otherwise have disappeared.
“There were hand-drawn ones, but then the ink didn’t last, so they would be out in the rain and the faces disappear,” Buehler said.
For Buehler, the fading images also became a metaphor for the way memories can disappear over time.
“It’s kind of like memory, of how we forget about things,” he said. “Those stuck out to me because I didn’t want them forgotten.”
The exhibit brings those photographs back into public view more than two decades after they were taken.
Although the exhibit is being displayed inside a Catholic church, it is open to people of all faiths.
Co-curator Sarah Celentano said the exhibit’s design draws inspiration from religious devotional practices, including icon veneration and the Stations of the Cross.
“My ideas for it come from devotional practices like icon veneration and walking the Stations of the Cross,” Celentano said.
The exhibit encourages visitors to spend time looking at the faces in the photographs and considering the lives behind them.
“What it really asks people to do is focus on the humanity of these people, to really engage with their image, what their loved ones wrote about them on the posters,” Celentano said.
“Countenance: The 9/11 Missing Posters” will remain on display through Sept. 13 at Most Holy Trinity-St. Mary Church in Williamsburg.