Brussels, 05/09/2008 (Agence Europe) - At 11 o'clock on Tuesday 9 September, the president of the Veneto Region Giancarlo Galan and the chairwoman of the H.E.R.A. Foundation Pialuisa Binaco will open the photo exhibition by Joel Meyerowitz on the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Guests of honour will be European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani and the United States Ambassador to the European Union Kristen Silverberg. The exhibition, entitled “September 11 2008. Seven Years of memories”, will run from 9-18 September inclusive at the Berlaymont, the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels.
In 2005, the Veneto Region dedicated a memorial in Padua to the victims of the 11 September attacks. It contains of a huge, 100-tonne beam recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center. The work by architect Daniel Libeskind, in which the beam sits, forms an open book, the book of freedom, a press release from the Veneto Region says. Seven years on from the tragedy, and following the conference by Libeskind on the message of the memorial organised by CIVA (the International Centre for Urbanism, Architecture and Landscape) in Brussels in January 2005, this photo exhibition calls us to a moment of collective reflection and resistance of all kinds of fanaticism. It transcends communities and cultures.
“To me no photographs meant no history,” says Meyerowitz, the only photographer allowed on the site of Ground Zero. He has gifted a remarkable collection of photos that cover the events to the Veneto Region, which feels that it has a duty to share this “memory”. Thus, with the support of Antonio Tajani, the full collection of Meyerowitz's photos on these attacks and a scale model of the memorial will, for the very first time, be on display in the Berlaymont, the press release says. For information, contact c_elena.curtopassi@regioni.veneto.it Telephone in Brussels: 32 2 743 70 12. (G.B./transl.rt)