When Colreene Mulrenan learned of the terrorist attacks on September 11, she began to worry about the safety of her father, James, who works in New York City as deputy chief of the fire department.
Two days later, her fatigued father returned to their home in Warnick wearing work shorts covered in ash and soot from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.
Mulrenan, a gradute student in electronic arts at RPI, arduously cleaned his work clothes by hand, and documented her memory of the experience in “Daughter, September 13,” a four-minute video, which consists mostly of footage of washing her father’s shirts in the sink.
“Washing my father’s shirts took hours,” said Mulrenan. “A part of me wanted to leave the shirts dirty, to tuck them away somewhere. I knew that some of that ash was not just building materials, and cleaning away the remains seemed wrong. Another part of me wanted to scrub all of the dirt out so that I could erase some of the pain that the attacks created.”
Mulrenan’s video is the feature work of Riverrun, an exposition of film and video works whose subjects focus on the natural and cultural identity of the Hudson River and the lower Manhattan Waterfront. The exposition was recently created by a collaboration between the Whitney Museum of American Art and Minetta Brook, a non-profit arts organization that creates public art presentations.
“[Riverrun] is a tribute to the river, to the spirit of downtown, and to the city itself,” said Diane Shamash, director of Minetta Brook.
Although the exhibit includes the works of five other artists, “Daughter, September 13,” is the only video in the collection to express the emotional impact produced by the events of September 11.
Riverrun will be shown in nightly screenings projected onto the facade of the 110-foot Holland Tunnel Ventilation Building from September 21 to October 4. The public will be able to watch the shows for free by visiting Pier 34 at the lower Manhattan waterfront between 8 pm and 10:20 pm.
