11 moving images from 9/11 submitted by people around the world

Gallery TEDTalks A man in a business suit emerges from the smoke and soot on 9/11, covering his face in order to breathe. Submitted by Adam Bezer.

In 2006, Jake Barton of the interactive media design firm Local Projects received a challenge unlike any other: to create the installations for the 9/11 Memorial Museum, which will open in 2014, with Thinc Design. September 11 is not a historical event made safe and sterile by the passage of decades and centuries. Today is just the 12th anniversary of 9/11, and it is still very much an open wound. As Barton explains in yesterday’s talk, Jake Barton: The museum of you“You can’t have just a historian or curator narrating objectively in third person about an event like that when you have the witnesses to history who are going to make their way through the actual museum itself.”

The museum’s approach: to open up curation for the installations in an open-source platform called “Make History.” Make History invites people across the globe — both those who were at the World Trade Center that day, and those who watched the tragedy unfold from afar — to share their photos, videos and stories of September 11. The museum will also make use of oral histories — in fact, the opening gallery of the museum, called “We Remember” is an audiovisual collage of museum visitors answering the question: “Where were you on 9/11?” Watch Barton’s talk to see what the experience of the gallery will be like.

While the 9/11 Memorial Museum itself won’t open until spring of 2014, Make History is currently available online and includes 17 videos, 524 stories and more than a thousand photos which anyone can browse, in galleries or in  Street View. Anyone is invited to share their story here.

Below, a selection of some images from Make History.

The Twin Towers fully engulfed in fire, just before the collapse. Submitted by James O’Brien.

Taken from the air on approach to LaGuardia. Submitted by Steve Schwadron.

Firefighters at Ground Zero. Submitted by Kevin Elms.

A shop at the corner of William St. and Fulton St. Submitted by Yasuhide Joju.

Thousands flooded the Brooklyn Bridge to head home. Most people were unharmed, but sometimes you would see someone covered in soot from head to toe. Submitted by Adam Bezer.

9/11 dominates the headlines at the Barnes & Nobles in Union Square. This picture is part of “Post 9/11 Photographs Series.” Submitted by Kitt Amaritnant.

A memorial vigil at Union Square. Submitted by Karen Hill.

Near the Armory on Lexington Avenue, a police officer scans the missing-person flyers. Submitted by Paul McGeiver.

A group of Sikhs show their patriotism at “A Prayer for America” at Yankee Stadium. After September 11, there were several incidents of Sikhs being beaten — having been mistaken for Muslims — across the US. Submitted by Harry Zernike.

An image of the memorial lights taken from the Brooklyn Bridge. Submitted by Noam Galai.

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