Installation view (Screen detail): Meditations in an Emergency, 2018; New-York Historical Society Museum and Library.
As the New-York Historical Society’s first artist-in-residence, the London-based photographer Bettina von Zwehl gathered 17 students from New York City High Schools to pose for anonymous silhouettes. The series, titled Meditations in an Emergency, loosely represent the victims of the 14 February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas School in Parkland, Florida. Yet the positions of the students’ bodies in the photos also recall the “die-in” protests held by student activists calling for stronger gun control laws in the US. To reinforce this, outside of the exhibition on the museum’s second floor, there is a slideshow of activists holding signs with phrases such as: “Enough is Enough”.
“It was really important to balance the idea of a memorial with the force of that teen movement,” von Zwehl says. “And to leave the view of some sense of hope at the end.” While the form is inspired by portraits of anonymous Americans in the New-York Historical Society’s archives by the 19th-century artist Benjamin Tappan, the series largely came out of von Zwehl’s disillusionment with the zealous culture surrounding gun ownership. The series title is taken from reports by teachers in America declaring a state of emergency after the Parkland shooting as well as a book of poetry by Frank O’Hara.
THE ART NEWSPAPER by Amanda Svachula
13 February 2019 (excerpt)