Twenty-five years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, artists from Muslim, South Asian, and Southwest Asian and North African communities are reflecting on how the “War on Terror” changed their lives. Hyperallergic’s featured piece collects personal and artistic responses from artists, curators, and culture workers, including Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal.
The anniversary issue, titled Artists Reflect on 25 Years Since 9/11, opens with a note from associate editor Lisa Yin Zhang, who was four years old when the towers fell. Her memory of the event is fragmented: her grandmother picking her up early from Pre-K, smoke rising from a pillar outside the car window, and a sticker of the American flag suddenly appearing on their vehicle.
“I sensed at once that the comfort and security Americans had long taken for granted were gone.”
Bilal’s line captures the immediate shift felt by many in the Muslim community. The period after the attacks was defined by grief, rebuilding, and a vicious campaign of Islamophobia and surveillance. The United States used the attacks to justify passing the PATRIOT Act and invading Iraq and Afghanistan, shaping the world as artists knew it.
The Artists Who Contributed
The contributors include Shahzia Sikander, Rina Banerjee, Michael Rakowitz, and Hyperallergic’s Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian. Their stories range from surveillance under the NSEERS program to losing a family member to the forever wars.
Not all of the stories are dark. Multiple contributors pointed to the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York’s first Muslim mayor as a milestone that could mark a better path ahead. The election is framed as evidence that the future need not mirror the past.
The Rabkin Prize Winner
Today’s issue also carries news from the Rabkin Foundation. The foundation named its 2026 prize winners, including Hyperallergic’s regular contributor Damien Davis. Davis has written about losing an archive, crushing debt traps, and more for the publication.
The prize recognizes arts writers, and this year’s recipients join seven others alongside Davis.
Pocket Reviews Make Their Debut
Hyperallergic is also launching a new format: pocket reviews. Each review runs 250 words, described as playful, pithy, and portable. The first installment comes from Zhang herself, who reviewed I Want Your Sex — a film starring Olivia Wilde as a contemporary artist, scammer, and dominatrix.
Zhang’s verdict is blunt: the film is a caricature of the art world more than an actual critique, but it’s funner that way.
Other News From the Issue
The issue covers several other items:
- The Brooklyn Museum installed “Free F’All” (1997) by Caribbean-American artist Michael Richard in the lobby for public display, marking the anniversary.
- Tschabalala Self’s “Lady in Blue” was unveiled as the latest sculpture for the Fourth Plinth on Trafalgar Square in London.
- Kathleen V. Jameson is the Speed Museum’s new director, the New Museum gets new board members, The Met acquires Alison Rossiter works, and a David Hockney show breaks records.
The issue also points readers toward upcoming exhibitions across the US, including Tony Cokes’s riffs on the video essay, a Grandma Moses retrospective, and Abbas Akhavan’s US museum debut.
The anniversary issue is a reminder that the attacks continue to shape lives decades later. Zhang’s introduction acknowledges that she was too young to understand at the time, but now has a better view. For many of the artists sharing their stories, the past remains present in ways both personal and political.
Source: hyperallergic.com