Yadegar Asisi

NEW YORK 9/11

War in Times of Peace

When you look at this city and know that in the next five minutes the world will change – that is true everywhere and at all times. This absolute feeling that everything can be over in an instant.

Yadegar Asisi

Yadegar Asisi's fourth anti-war project continues his view of the world focusing on the wars of modern times: NEW YORK 9/11 is an exhibition with five installations and a 360° panorama commemorating the attacks of 11 September and their global impact. In the panorama, in contrast to the previous exhibition tour, one looks at the scenery around the World Trade Center on the morning of 11 September 2001 at 08:41, five minutes before the attacks. With the knowledge of the catastrophes that followed, this starting point in the midst of the morning hustle and bustle in multicultural Manhattan thus becomes a seemingly utopian snapshot.

The installations in NEW YORK 9/11 show the less visible consequences of the fateful day: the suffering, the follow-up costs, the fates of fugitives and contemporary witnesses, the nameless victims of torture, fighting and persecution as a direct effect of 9/11 and the wars that followed. The exhibition tour is embedded in a reverse chronology of the past 20 years. In addition, the topics are supplemented with contributions by renowned guest authors such as Shida Bazyar, Bazon Brock, Michael Lüders, Wim Wenders and others, as well as contemporary witnesses who report on their personal experiences of suffering.

Panorama music and soundscape by Eric Babak

From the pilot project EVEREST onwards, Yadegar Asisi is collaborating with the well-known composer and pianist Eric Babak. In close collaboration between the two artists, the impressive soundscape of the panoramas is harmonized directly in the exhibition space with the lighting patterns to create an atmospheric overall installation. Depending on the project, the productions use, among other things, large orchestras and choirs, but also minimalist synthesizer sounds in combination with everyday noises to make the special atmosphere of the themes audible and tangible in the constant change of panorama sequences.

www.ericbabak.com