The Power of Remembrance


The Power of Remembrance

Artist: Dayna Talbot

Title: The Power of Remembrance

Attribution: The Power of Remembrance, 2020, Dayna Talbot

Year: 2020

Materials: Silk, flax, wire, wool, various other fibers

Dimensions: Variable/Installation

Image Statement: I was a flight attendant for United Airlines on my way to Boston for a medical procedure when I heard the news of the planes hitting the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. I lost 35 friends and colleagues that day. The Power of Remembrance project began three years later when United offered employees a company-wide leave of absence and I enrolled in a BFA program. Not fully realizing it, I had begun a 20-year project of unraveling and documenting my 9/11 grief and trauma. I began working with structures and fibers in graduate school at Lesley University. This installation brings full circle my aesthetic response to the tragic attacks on 9/11. It was during grad school that art became my form of meditation, I honor my colleagues and all the victims by creating these totemic forms. The four columns stand for the two United and two American Airlines planes. The columns are composed of 3,000 pieces of shredded and rewoven silk, each unique strand honoring one of the individuals who died in 9/11. Additionally, 35 handmade felted vessels hold 35 souls, one for each of the United and American Airlines employees who also died that day. The vessels were made to my specifications by me and several collaborating SDA artists contributed vessels. The installation memorializes them by recreating a unity of body and spirit. It provides the viewer with a place to reflect on this national catastrophe and to mourn in tranquility and peace.