Everyone Has A Story
Indrė Šerpytytė: “Hi my name is Indrė Šerpytytė and my work is called 150 MPH and it's a work which I made post 9/11 after seeing the footage of a man and woman jumping from the Twin Towers. I think it was just like the shock of it, you know, I think we all lived through that moment, you know, we, it's such a pinnacle moment in our lives where we, you know, we remember where we were, every single person you will ask where were you at the moment, everyone has a story. And I, I felt like I had to make something to in some way to understand what happened.
And just seeing the footage of the people jumping or, you know, falling was such a, such a big thing for me as an artist, I had to deal with it in some way or in some way make a monument for those people because they weren’t very well represented after the 9/11. I don’t think, it’s not about representing that against people in that way, it's really remembering them, and you know, it's, it's a monument to people, to all the people who were there. But really focusing on the people who, you know, it was a big issue about did they jump? Why did they jump? You know? How did they take their own life? And I think that was kind of also what was trying to deal and we will never know, you know, maybe some of them decided at the moment, this is, I own my life, and I have a, you know, I have a right to decide how I die. Or maybe it was too hot because the building was so hot and it was burning, you know, maybe they just had to kind of get out of the situation they were.
So, it's, it's like this very moment where we don't actually know what happened, you know. It's a concept which we can't deal with, but I just felt like I had to make a monument to them. The process took actually a very long time because I live with the images for a long time and then to kind of how to deal with them, you know, and do I include the, the, the people who jump or do I remove them, and the materiality of the paintings was very important. And in the end I decided that to actually to use very kind of car machines, you know, very kind of building materials would be the best way to deal with that, with that.
I, I think it's really interesting to give it kind of a, you know, a place to be and you know being next to Gerhard Richter, who also kind of did the post 9/11 painting, you know, opposite him it's, it's the context is very, you know, interesting. I don’t think art deals with terrorism, I think it allows us to understand the times we live in and maybe deal with some of the situations within ourselves. I don't, I don't think art necessarily deals with terrorism, I think art just kind of explains it or in some way gives a moment of reflection of the, of the of the times we live in, especially today where you know, we're so image obsessed and we don't actually take time to stop and look. You know, what happened yesterday is completely forgotten because a new thing is happening, so I think art really gives you that moment of reflection.”
Indrė Šerpytytė's work 150MPH is partly the Lithuanian-born artist's way of processing the events of 9/11 and partly a monument to the people who lost their lives in the attacks on the Twin Towers.
150MPH is on display at IWM London as part of Age of Terror: Art since 9/11 until 28 May 2018.