Join us here at the Lukens Executive Office Building as we watch a nationally broadcast monthly talk presented by the Iron and Steel Heritage Forum.
In the years since September 11th, scores of books focused on the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan have appeared. This project examines a different form of memorialization: the World Trade Center steel sent out from Ground Zero to every U.S. state and 10 countries overseas. Over 1,800 steel fragments have been distributed and worked into memorials. Hundreds of these local memorials were completed in the lead up to the 10th- and 20th anniversaries, and several new ones continue to appear each year. These memorials are both an invocation of millennia-old reliquaries, and a new D.I.Y. style of commemoration adapted for the U.S.’s sprawling communities. This presentation will explore the creation of the WTC, the curation of damaged steel for use in investigations and memorials, and the artists and craftspeople who helped to shape memorials across the globe.
Speaker: Dr. Samuel Holleran
Samuel Holleran is a researcher and public artist who has worked with design firms, universities, and nonprofits in North America, Australia, and Europe. His writing on cemeteries, parks, and equitable urbanism has appeared in numerous publications, and he has launched several major creative projects, often in collaboration with community-based organizations. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Urban Design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, focused on democratic practices in memorial making.
