The Godwin-Ternbach Museum at Queens College presents Memento Mori: 9/11 Twenty-Five Years Later, on view from 9 September through 30 November 2026, creating a meditative space for reflection, remembrance, and education through artworks and archival materials responding to September 11, 2001. Centered on six oversized photographs of Tribute in Light (2002), the exhibition invites visitors to consider the enduring impact of 9/11 and the role of art in preserving personal and collective memory a quarter-century after the attacks.
Created by artists Julian LaVerdiere and Paul Myoda in collaboration with architects John Bennett, Gustavo Bonevardi, and Richard Nash Gould, and lighting designer Paul Marantz, Tribute in Light was first illuminated on 11 March 2002, six months after the attacks. Its twin beams, consisting of 88 vertical searchlights arranged in two columns to represent the Twin Towers, have since become an enduring symbol of remembrance, resilience, and renewal. The installation appears annually on September 11, currently produced by the Municipal Art Society of New York, projecting light four miles into the sky.
The six photographs, along with eight related works, were donated to the Godwin-Ternbach Museum in 2021 for the twentieth anniversary exhibition and are now part of the museum's permanent collection. LaVerdiere and Myoda, both former residents in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's World Views artist residency program housed on the 91st floor of World Trade Center Tower One, conceived the project as "Phantom Towers" in the immediate aftermath. They responded to an invitation from The New York Times Magazine, proposing an image of two beacons of light that graced the magazine's cover on 23 September 2001.
The exhibition also features books, magazines, ephemera, documentary photographs, and digital prints of works responding to 9/11, including materials from MNEMONIC: A 9/11 Memorial Exhibition, organized at LaGuardia Community College in 2002. Media components include Lotus Cusp, created and produced by Professor Adele Shtern, featuring a Healing Art Portfolio of graphically designed 9/11 stories by Shtern and her students at Borough of Manhattan Community College (2001-2011), and 102 Minutes That Changed America, produced by Siskel/Jacobs Productions for the History Channel.
Works donated by Frances Hynes include four mixed media drawings on paper created shortly after the event. The exhibition includes loaned images from artist Xu Bing, highlighting the ephemeral qualities of what remains, and poetry by New York State Poet Kimiko Hahn, distinguished professor in the MFA program at Queens College. Also included is September 11, 2001: The Day That Changed the World, an exhibition curated and produced by the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, with fourteen panels describing the events through personal stories of those who witnessed and survived the attacks, incorporating archival photographs and images of artifacts from the Museum's permanent collection.
The Godwin-Ternbach Museum was one of several institutions selected in 2021 to receive a limited edition, hardcopy set of the poster prints. Located on the Flushing campus of Queens College (CUNY), the museum has become the permanent home of these iconic photographs commemorating 9/11, offering a space where visitors can contemplate how art preserves memory across generations and how the phantom towers of light continue to shape collective understanding of loss, resilience, and renewal.
Image: Tribute in Light 2001 © Julian LaVerdiere and Paul Myoda
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