Day Zero: Photographs at the Epicentre of History

If the World Trade Centre attacks occupied not only Ground Zero, but Day Zero, on which America’s new relationship to the world began and after which ‘nothing would be the same’, this day becomes fixed as an historical moment around which there can be no ambiguity. With this belief comes such a strong determination to respond and push forward into the future that everything before that September day ceases to exist and looking back is seemingly not required. At the same time, however, the event is firmly fixed within nostalgic frames that, rhetorically and visually, make sense of the new reality. This chapter looks at the commemorative work of photographer Joel Meyerowitz at Ground Zero along with the wider photographic representation of this event, considering photography as a site of tension between the denial of history and its fetishisation.