Author: Saltzman, Lisa
Interdisciplinary Handbook of Trauma and Culture; Springer International Publishing AG, 2016.
Abstract: This essay explores the relation between trauma and representation by attending to a set of cultural works鈥攁rchitectural, artistic and literary鈥攖hat took the events of September 11th as their subject. Through a close reading of these works, indebted at once to an art historical project of exegesis and interpretation and to a literature on trauma, the essay proposes and pursues the possibility that such work is not so much, or not yet, a post-traumatic representation of September 11th but rather, a cultural site in which the very impossibility of such representation is both theorized and figured. Among those works discussed are Michael Arad鈥檚 now-realized memorial proposal, Reflecting Absence, a piece that is at once a work of art and architecture, Jonathan Borofksy鈥檚 sculptural installation Walking to the Sky, Paul Chan鈥檚 video installation 1st Light, Pia Lindman鈥檚 鈥減ortraits of grief,鈥 as well as her video projects Viewing Platform and Waterline, Art Spiegelman鈥檚 graphic novel, In the Shadow of No Towers and, finally, as a gesture of conclusion, a literary work that is punctuated by photographs that appear with all the unpredictability and force of the traumatic flashback, Jonathan Safran Foer鈥檚 illustrated work of literary fiction, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.