Resumen de Staging Remembrance and Trauma at the 9/11 Memorial
The violent terror attacks of 11 September 2001 have had a traumatic impact on many, and memorials commemorating the event have been erected across the United States. Most prominent and publicly contested is the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City built atop and underneath Ground Zero. Since its opening the site has become one of New York’s most popular tourist attraction, its location visibly marked by America’s tallest building: 1 World Trade Centre. The memorial structure and surrounding plaza serves as official representation of the national trauma experienced 13 years ago, staged to express state mourning as well as symbolising collective resilience. Inspired by Connerton’s notion of embodied memory I investigate the performed interactions and embodied practices at the 9/11-Memorial site. Drawing on ethnographic data, interviews and a visual analysis of the space conducted over nine months in 2013- 14 in New York City, I will discuss how the narrative of trauma is represented and how public remembrance is enacted and staged by both the memorial institution and day-to-day visitors. Evidenced by the gazes of visitors to the site, the photographs they take, as well as the practices of leaving and capturing memorialising objects, I argue that the traumatic events of the day are actively and passively re-enacted in daily public performances, so contributing to the larger memory discourse of 9/11.
