Objects and Memory

Friday, September 11, 2009 at 8 pm (NJN1)

Why do people value objects? What is it about a piece of paper, an ID card or a small coin that provokes powerful memories? Without the objects, the stories they are meant to evoke lack vibrancy; without the stories, the objects lack significance. These objects and the memories they awaken transform the commonplace into the remarkable and become the stuff of history and culture.

Objects and Memory examines how seemingly ordinary objects serve to link us to loved ones in the aftermath of catastrophic loss. The project emerged from New York-based filmmakers Jonathan Fein and Brian Danitz’ need to “make sense” of the 9/11 tragedy. Frank Langella narrates the documentary, with music by Philip Glass.

When people’s lives undergo sudden upheaval and incomprehensible loss, they seek a bridge between the irreplaceable past and a hopeful future. Objects and Memory uses 9/11 as the focal point of the documentary and features visits to the memorial site of the Oklahoma City bombing and the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial to elaborate on the poignancy of objects retrieved from and left at the sites. The film captures rarely seen footage of the Ground Zero recovery effort and its dramatic challenges, and features moving and powerful images of everyday objects that became treasured possessions following the life-altering disaster. Family members, witnesses to the tragedies and historians describe how objects remind us of special experiences and emotional connections.

Surviving spouses and family members of individuals who lost their lives on 9/11 offer testimony and personal stories of loss, redemption and reclaiming perspective following tragedy and catastrophe. The simple everyday objects returned to them following the massive clean-up at Ground Zero — an ID card, a summer pocketbook, a two dollar bill — illustrate how these items helped them to find connection with their loved ones as well as healing from their loss.

Authors, archivists, museum curators, experts from academia and members of police and fire rescue teams offer insight into the human need to affirm connection and continuity in the face of loss, and the process of building and retaining memories through inanimate objects — both in the retrieving of personal effects of the deceased or in leaving behind symbolic tokens at the site of a tragedy. Objects and Memory sheds light on both response objects and recovered/saved objects and how, in both cases, ordinary things we imbue with significance take on great importance to our lives, personally or collectively.

Items placed near the World Trade Center’s ruins, outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC, illustrate that everyday items such as teddy bears, work boots, artworks and insignia patches evoke memory and emotion and recollections of shared emotional experiences with loved ones. Objects recovered from Ground Zero — wallet contents, keys, a whistle, a FDNY helmet — are examples of otherwise ordinary items transformed into resonant conveyers of meaning after being recovered.

Crushed and burned out yellow cabs, passenger cars, FDNY fire trucks and rescue vehicles brought to the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island and twisted metal construction beams stored in Hangar 17 at JFK airport serve as reminders of the terror that unfolded on the morning of September 11, 2001. These objects also bring to mind the extraordinary courage of first responders on the scene and the victims’ heroic efforts to survive. In the face of traumatic events, the constancy and predictability of day-to-day life evaporate in an instant. Objects and Memory captures moving remembrances of extraordinary historical events and humans’ innate drive to maintain connections and continuity by preserving the past to connect with the future.