Tribute to the towers

By LINDA HERRICK

In all my years as an arts writer I've heard some outrageous statements, but Gail Haffern's take on September 11 is, shall we say, singular. Auckland-based Haffern, the first person in New Zealand to gain a doctorate in fine arts and a doctorate programme teacher at Elam Art School, sees the day's events and those planes-into-towers images as "wonderful ... because it was a new idea".

Well, it's certainly never been done before but Haffern claims she's not alone in her opinion. "Since September 11, I've been asking people how that day was for them - almost inevitably I get the answer that in the end, it was wonderful."

Before you start on the hate mail, let's define that word "wonderful". Perhaps she means it as the sense of wonder "caused by something beautiful, unexpected or unfamiliar", which is how my dictionary defines it.

The sight of those two planes flying across a pristine blue New York sky into those towers had something of all three, and more. They are images we saw repeatedly a year ago, and this first-anniversary week we are seeing them over and over again.

And, as Haffern sees it, art has a place amid the debate over world events which affects us all, as Bush's "war on terror" proceeds.

"What I found, when I went into work the day after, everyone was accusing somebody, everyone had something bad to say about somebody else, whether it was Bush or Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda or whatever - someone was in the wrong and I found that position quite hard to handle."

As part of her doctorate, completed last year, Haffern created an exhibition and wrote an accompanying book called Control Room which dealt with institutionalised control. "With every adversity a scapegoat is found," she wrote, quoting Nietzsche.

"Resentment and grievance spring from a ... framework that sources suffering as always originating from the other person.

"My doctorate dealt with people in the wrong and I came to the conclusion there is not right or wrong, no evil, no good," she says.

"The only thing that is good is life on this planet and we are part of it. The way we behave - I can't see it in moralistic terms any more."

Haffern, who has numerous books on the World Trade Centre, has a favourite: Peter Skinner's World Trade Center: The Giants That Defied the Sky (White Star Publisher), a large-format publication filled with glowing pictures of the towers and, at mid-point, the day of their fall and the aftermath.

She pulls out a centrefold, the towers bathed in sun like two pieces of burnished gold. "Playboy, eat your heart out," she says. "Look at this for aesthetics," before turning to pages of the buildings coming down, falling bodies twisting through the air.

"No matter how many times you see this and the images of the planes, you are still gasping and you can't stop looking at it."

Haffern has no television and had no idea what had happened on the day (September 12 here) when she went to the hairdresser's early in the morning as a treat for her doctoral graduation.

"I went into the bookshop at Howick and there was a TV above showing all this rubble - I thought it must be an earthquake somewhere. I didn't know which country the scenes were from. Then I saw a plane plunging into one of the towers, then the second one. I asked the guy at the counter and he said there were four planes.

"Four planes? I thought it was an extraordinary idea to do this, somebody declaring war against the mightiest country that has ever existed with one of its own peacetime machines. Looking at this, and being an artist, I thought what if this had been a performance piece and Osama bin Laden had declared himself an artist, how would the world have seen it then?"

Haffern - who has a mischievous quality to her personality - probably doesn't expect an answer to that but she has pondered her own response to September 11 over the past year.

The result is the sculptural installation Sept. 11, at Te Tuhi - The Mark in Pakuranga, a series of four Twin Towers "because there were four planes", a hanging central resin cube and, as so often with Haffern's work, wordplay.

Each of the tower pillars - here standing about 1m high - fits the exact dimensions of the original towers, with an S-bend in the structure at the point where the planes went in.

One pair is made of metal and one of resin, to represent the Twin Towers; one of concrete, for the concrete Pentagon; and the fourth of burned wood, for the plane that went down in the field in Pennsylvania.

Small signs within the large resin cube display words such as "No Sides", Not False", "Not Equal", while a cluster of 25 polished aluminium blocks beneath it also have words on them in gold leaf: Pentagone, Chequemate, and so on.

"The installation is definitely not a political statement - it asks the viewer to take a new position free of accusation and prejudice to view the acts of September 11 with a sense of amazement," Haffern explains.

"I'm saying, step away from blame. How are we to act if we act only according to blame? So many of us just think and squeal, think and squeal. This act is done and you can't fault the execution of the act. It was perfect, extraordinarily clever."

Isn't Haffern at all fearful this stance will be a little controversial? She roars with laughter. "I never know what people will think. During my doctorate I had this poster out on the street called 'Post-Colonial Gilt'."

The poster shows a weeping Jesus wearing a crown of thorns and clutching a handful of New Zealand $20 bills.

"Those posters were meant to be offensive but with so many of them, people had cut them out and taken them home. People are so surprising."

* Sept. 11 is at Te Tuhi's Members' Gallery until September 22; a function at the gallery on Wednesday, 7-9pm, will include talks about the impact of the event.