BEYOND GROUND ZERO: 9/11 AND THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE – Photographs by Jonathan C. Hyman

On the afternoon of September 11, 2001, Jonathan C. Hyman, an artist and photographer based in upstate New York, embarked on a journey to document responses to the 9/11 terrorist attacks appearing in the landscape around him.

Armed almost daily with his camera, ladder, and car, Hyman captured evidence of the grassroots expressions of everyday citizens spurred by this national catastrophe. His investigations took him from Maine to Florida and west to Illinois, though the majority of photographs were taken closer to New York City. The result is an expansive archive of more than 20,000 film and digital images. Hyman encountered improvised tributes and memorials on public and private property, in urban and rural areas, and on all manner of surfaces from building walls, handball courts, and vehicles to tree trunks, construction fencing, and human skin. He continued for years to document these unofficial memorials, many of which remained long after the emergence of more formal tributes.


Jonathan C. Hyman (American, b. 1960), is a fine artist and freelance photographer, living in Sullivan County, New York. A graduate of Rutgers University and Hunter College of the City University of New York’s MFA program, he documents vernacular art and contemporary American popular culture. Hyman is Associate Director for Conflict and Visual Culture Initiatives at Bryn Mawr College’s Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict.

This exhibition is drawn from the collection of the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

All photographs © Jonathan C. Hyman