Dr. Mark Schaming, New York Historical Society
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
6:00pm - Rainey Auditorium, Penn Museum

Immediately following the attacks of September 11, 2001 curators at the New York State Museum began to document, collect, preserve and eventually exhibit material that would record the tragic events and bring the history to the public in new ways.  Many unprecedented issues were confronted including collecting at crime scenes, working with families, survivors, the FBI, NYPD, FDNY and many city agencies. The work continues ten years after the attacks as we continue to collaborate with many of the people effected who have brought voices to the record of September 11. The presentation will show the issues of collecting sensitive material with the collaboration of the FBI, and and NYPD at a crime scene while history was unfolding, museum exhibitions that followed, and the museum visitor reaction within a close time frame of a tragic event.  The artifacts became rather than criminal evidence, historic evidence and transmitters of history within a year of the events. The presentation will include images of collecting at the sites in 2001, collecting memorials and expressions of grief across the country, and working with survivors, family members to document the stories of those killed and those who lived, and how the exhibitions were shaped in the ten years since 9/11.

Mark Schaming is Director of Exhibitions, and Public Programs at the New York State Museum. With over twenty years of museum exhibition experience he leads the public division of the museum that develops and implements the education, exhibition, public programs and media arts. After September 11, 2001 Schaming spent over 40 days at WTC recovery sites working with museum curators and officials to document and collect in the aftermath. He has in the 10 years after September 11, 2001 worked with families, survivors, rescue, law enforcement and many public agencies to collect, document and develop exhibitions about the attacks. He was principal designer of exhibition: The World Trade Center: Rescue Recovery and Response, the nation’s first permanent exhibition of artifacts documenting the September 11th attacks, and September 11, 2001: A Global Moment, the touring exhibition that followed in Caen France, Orador sur Glane. Schaming developed three exhibitions that are now traveling across the US for the 10th Anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

This lecture is free to the public. Please join us for a reception following the event.