End of innocence

Abstract

9-11. 9/11. These digits had no particular significance other than the emergency telephone number prior to September 11, 2001. This date is like December 7, 1941 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to it as, "a day that will live in infamy." On this day the World Trade Center in New York City was turned into an inferno by planes flown by hijackers from middle-east countries. For some American, this day serves as a punctuation mark, a period, a comma, or an exclamation point that divides a much simpler time from a more complex and dangerous time. It divides The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet from the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. My thesis exhibition entitled "End of Innocence" was an attempt to show this division. A child's toys, rocking horses, were transformed into something sinister: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Death, Famine, Conquest, and War. These four entities have been with us since the book of Revelations in the Holy Bible was written, but are more omnipresent than before. The Holy Bible 2 and its writers describe them as descending from heaven to wreak havoc on the population of earth. They are mythical creatures, but their symbolism is very real. Death, Famine, Conquest, and War portend suffering for all eternity.