The American artist Miya Ando’s sculpture, fashioned from a World Trade Centre girder has been given a permanent home at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London. The structure which measures 28ft (8.5m) tall was given to the United Kingdom by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, owners of the World Trade Centre, which was destroyed by terrorists in 2001, killing just under 3000 people. In 2011 the work of art was commissioned by UK-based charity SINCE 9/11. It was unveiled in Battersea Park on the condition that it was permanently sited. However it was removed and a permanent location was difficult to secure.
Mayor Boris Johnson said it was a “tremendous new addition to the park”. A ‘Pertinent reminder’ The sculpture uses a girder from the Twin Towers and is one of only six pieces sent around the world. In 2011 the Mayor said efforts to find a permanent home for the sculpture had had proved “incredibly difficult” after they were met with opposition from “boroughs and bureaucrats”. The work was stored for years on a Cambridgeshire farm, he added. The mayor said “This pertinent reminder of the 9/11 atrocities is a tremendous new addition to the park that encapsulated the spirit of hope, and tolerance during our Olympic Games. “Nearly 14 years may have passed but this prodigious art work will generate continued interest, discussion and memories in the thousands of visitors to its landmark new home.”
The unveiling of the ‘Ground Zero’ artwork was attended by the US Ambassador to the UK, Matthew Barzun who said, the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park was a “fantastic location” for the sculpture.
Miya Ando’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions in several U.S. states including New York and California. Ando has also exhibited in France, Australia, England, Germany, and Tokyo, Japan. Ando’s work can be found at Aldrich Contemporary, the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, the Byzantine Museum in Greece, and in Chapman University’s private collection.
In 2009, Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society commissioned Ando’s piece, “8-Fold Path,” which consists of a grid of four steel square canvases measuring 4 feet each. The work was featured in a July 2009 article for Shambhala Sun for its “meditative” nature and “spiritual” influence. Also in 2009, Ando created “Fiat Lux” (“Let There Be Light”), a grid of 144 individual 5″ x 5” steel canvasses for the meditation room in Brooklyn’s St. John’s Bread and Life Chapel.[citation needed] Ando was next commissioned by president Jay Davidson of The Healing Place Non Denominational Chapel to produce an installation for its women’s facility.
Ando’s forty-foot, phosphorescent-coated steel piece, “Shelter[Meditation,” collects sunlight during the day and radiates blue at night.[3] Ando’s latest installation commemorates the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York City’s Twin Towers. Commissioned by the 9/11 London Project Foundation as a permanent addition to Potters Fields Park in London, England, Ando’s sculpture stands eight metres tall and is crafted from polished World Trade Center steel.
Ando has also completed public commissions for Safdi Plaza Realty, the Thanatopolis Exhibition, San Francisco General Hospital, and CalFire. In 2011, Ando worked on commissions for the Haein Art Project in Korea and the Fist Art Foundation in Puerto Rico.
Photo Via Twitter Kunal Dutta @kunaldutta