Like most people who were living in the area on Sept. 11, 2001, photographer Sandra Swieder remembers exactly where she was when the terrorist attacks began: In bed.
“I was sleeping that Tuesday morning and I got a phone call from my ex-husband and he told me what was going on,” she recalled. “I grabbed my camera, my keys, and at the time I spoked, so I grabbed my cigarettes. I had no cell phone, no identification, and no money. I just went.”
The first tower collapsed minutes after she left her home.
That morning Sieder began a documentary project that would consume much of the next decade. One of the first shots she took was one that captured both the Hoboken and New York City waterfronts. In the photo the two skylines look like they are part of the same city.
‘Part of the exhibit acknowledges the work of our fire and rescue people.’ – Sandra Swieder
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Despite these connections, Swieder realized that New Jersey residents had a unique perspective of the tragedy as it unfolded.
Next month, as part of the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, ArtHouse Productions will present “From Across the River,” a exhibition of Swieder’s 9/11 photographs. The mixed-media exhibit will also include work – film, sculpture, painting – from other artists.
“People don’t realize how much New Jersey is a part of New York. Immediately, when the attacks happened, our emergency services were there,” Swieder stated, adding that ironworkers from Secaucus helped install a second dock in the Hudson River on 9/11 to help evacuate survivors more quickly. “They responded. It wasn’t like, ‘That isn’t my jurisdiction.’ Part of the exhibit acknowledges the work of our fire and rescue people who went over there to help save lives.”
Swieder shot images for 18 days straight.
‘It’s time to move on’
A trained photojournalist who also previously worked as a fashion photographer, Swieder said she never intended for her 9/11 project to consume as much time as it has.
Initially, she envisioned From Across the River as a book project that would offer a unique and untold aspect of the 9/11 tragedy. To her surprise, however, book publishers weren’t interested in the work and she began exploring other ways to make it available for public viewing.
“By the time I began showing the work to publishers, I think everybody was over [the tragedy] and they were ready to move on,” Swieder noted. “I think I approached them at a time when many people were starting to heal and get over their grief. Then there I was with these pictures and people saw the images as negative.”
She estimates she took between 700 and 1,000 images as part of the 9/11 work, images that not only document the morning of 9/11, but that also tell a story about the days, weeks, and months that followed.
“One thing I did was I would return to the same places where I took some of my original photos and then document what that place looked like a day later, a week later, a month later…Eventually, though, it was discouraging to get rejected by all these publishers and I kind of put the work aside for a while,” she said.
Swieder even moved out of the country and went to live in Mexico for two years. She recently returned and now lives in Weehawken.
Her return to Hudson County rekindled her interest in From Across the River after she began to reconnect with some of the people and places she had photographed back in 2001 and 2002 as part of the project.
“I decided I still wanted the work to be seen, I just had to figure out a different way of doing that,” she said.
She now hopes to generate enough interest in the photographs to sell them as a complete body of work, and have them curated into a traveling photo exhibit.
“Whatever happens with the work now, I just need it to be done,” she said. “Whatever happens, I’m ready to let it go. I’m ready to move on to something else.”
From Across the River will run at ArtHouse Productions, at 1 McWilliams Place (at Hamilton Square), 6th Floor, from September 1 through 15. Later in the month, on September 22, the exhibit will open at the William J. Brennan Courthouse, located at 583 Newark Avenue in Jersey City. This second showing will include a panel discussion on the work on Thursday, September 29.
E-mail E. Assata Wright at awright@hudsonreporter.com.