I didn’t get to New York City last week to repatriate my Evilution panels. Instead, I watched   the TV in horror as Hurricane Sandy left a trail of devastation along the coast of New York and New Jersey. As it sent a 11 foot surge of seawater into lower Manhattan at high tide my heart sank. Four of the my five panels, honoring the innocent victims of conflict, were in the basement of St Peter’s Church near ground Zero. The fifth is now part of the permanent collection of the National September 11 Memorial Museum three floors below the World Trade Centre just two blocks away.  

So ironic I thought, that my works (symbols of man’s destructiveness) may now have been destroyed so close to ground Zero, the catalyst for their creation and by a force greater than man can create. Or maybe, as some have already pointed out, man did have a hand - by destroying vast areas of rain forrest.

And what of my friends in Manhattan and New Jersey I thought. I cannot contact them, so are they without power, heat, water, phone contact and the basic necessities for survival?

Last night I received the first replies to the many e-mails I have been sending.  One friend has lost his home in Brooklyn -- see photo of him and his family surveying the wreckage. Other friends are well but living in what they describe as a ‘war zone’ with shops running low on food. The only piece of good news is that the panels were not flooded at the church. I still cannot contact the museum.  As I hear more and revise my plans, this page,will be updated along with my website and Facebook pages

911 panel for 911 Museum

I am now very pleased and honoured to say that, following discussions with Jan Ramirez, Chief Curator and Director of Collections of the National September 11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Centre, the 911 panel will now be exhibited there as part of its permanent collection. I delivered it to their offices last week pending the opening of the museum next year.

In a recent statement Jan Ramirez welcomed the acquisition adding, " As we work to build an encyclopaedic museum collection that engages with the September 11 terrorist attacks in the broadest cultural context, the recent donation of Roy Ray's 911 sculpture seems custom ordered to this mission. As a piece of response art, it provokes haunting memories of the inconceivable destruction of 2/4 mile high skyscrapers......".

The end of a journey

The long journey of the five panels “Where Their Footsteps Left No Trace” from their first showing in 2008 at the Falmouth Art Gallery, at Truro Cathedral, St Ives Parish Church and Coventry Cathedral has now come to an end at St Peter’s Church near ground Zero in New York. At their installation there last July, they were blessed by Father Madigan. I then dedicated the 911 panel to Rick Rescorla, Father Michael Judge and the First Responders that day who gave their lives attempting to rescue others (see my last blog). I then gifted the panel to the city of New York.