About the Exhibition
Marking a quarter of a century since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Flaten Art Museum highlights a print series from its collection: Thirty-Six Views of One World Trade Center by St. Olaf alumna Brenda Berkman ’73. Berkman — the sole named class plaintiff who opened the New York City Fire Department to women firefighters in 1982 — was a fire officer and first responder at the World Trade Center on 9/11, witnessing the destruction and loss that reverberated across the country.
Produced over three years, Berkman’s series of lithographs presents 36 vantage points of the construction of One World Trade Center in New York City from locations across the five boroughs and New Jersey. In black and white, the lithographs chronicle One World Trade Center’s construction through all the seasons within its built and natural environment. By tracking the changing skyline, Berkman centers literal rebuilding as an act of reflection on grief, resilience, and what it means to rebuild from catastrophic loss.
St. Olaf’s current students are among the 100 million Americans with no living memory of September 11, born into a world already shaped by its aftermath. To mark the 25th anniversary, St. Olaf will offer academic courses and programming that explore the attacks, their larger historical context, their contested legacies, and the ongoing questions they raise about security, civil liberties, identity, and the reverberations of US policy at home and abroad. Co-presented by the Flaten Art Museum, Svoboda Center for Civic Engagement, the Institute for Freedom and Community, the History Department, the Art and Art History Department, and the Piper Center for Career and Vocation, these offerings invite students and the broader community to engage with a history that is both distant and unfinished.
Programming
Student Luncheon: Carving Your Path — A Conversation on Vocation with Brenda Berkman
Thursday, September 17, 11:45-1:15 p.m.
Kings Dining Room, Buntrock Commons
Join us for an intimate student luncheon with Brenda Berkman, whose path has wound from St. Olaf history major to law school to the New York Fire Department to September 11th to artist and citizen historian. Over lunch, Brenda will share how her vocation has shifted and deepened across each chapter — and how she’s turned lived history into art and advocacy for justice and change.
For current St. Olaf students only. Registration required.
In Conversation: Brenda Berkman and Patrick Wilz on Service, Memory, and Meaning
Thursday, September 17, 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Groot Gallery, Center for Art and Dance
What does it mean to realize you’re acting in a historic moment—not just witnessing it, but shaping it? Firefighter and 9/11 first responder Brenda Berkman joins Visiting Assistant Professor of History Patrick Wilz to explore what it means to be swept into the current of history, and how one makes sense of its legacies. Drawing on Berkman’s service on September 11th and her printmaking practice in its aftermath, the conversation turns to how we process, commemorate, and remember traumatic and world-historic events—both personally and collectively.
Free and open to the public. This event is presented by the Buntrock Institute for Freedom and Community in partnership with the St. Olaf History Department and Flaten Art Museum.
About the Artist
In 1982, Brenda Berkman won her landmark sex discrimination case against the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) and became one of the FDNY’s first women firefighters. For 25 years, she served the City as a firefighter and fire officer, rising to the rank of Captain. Berkman was a first responder at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Her career is featured in the PBS documentary Taking the Heat. Berkman continues to mentor girls and young women both in firefighting and other non-traditional work and is also a volunteer tour guide at the 9-11 Memorial. Her fire service career is the subject of the 2021 children’s book Send a Girl! authored by Jess Rinker and illustrated by Meg Hunt.
On retiring from the FDNY in 2006, Brenda began to study printmaking at the Art Students League, where she quickly fell in love with stone lithography. Berkman has always been eager to collaborate with other artists. She created a collaborative art project commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9/11 involving 12 other artists. In 2013, she began the series of stone lithographic prints Thirty-six Views of One World Trade Center to commemorate the 15th anniversary of 9/11 and document the rebuilding of lower Manhattan. Drawing and printing hundreds of stone lithograph prints of 36 iconic views of the new One World Trade Center over the course of three years, Berkman’s series has been collected by the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, St. Olaf College, and a private collector. View a short video about the 36 Views project and browse her artworks at brendaberkmanartworks.com.
Continuing to put her training in history (B.A. St. Olaf College; M.A. Indiana University) and law (J.D. NYU) to use, Berkman also serves on the Board of Directors of Monumental Women (MW), dedicated to honoring women and people of color in public spaces. On the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment on August 26, 2020, she coordinated the unveiling of MW’s Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in the midst of the pandemic, the first statue of real women in the 167-year history of Central Park. This past August 26, 2021, Berkman was a co-creator of Monumental Women’s Women’s Rights History Trail — the first history trail in all five boroughs to focus on historical New York City women’s vast and varied contributions to the City and to the world.
Thirty-Six Views of One World Trade Center was purchased by the Flaten Art Museum through funds from Greg ’77 and Lisa Nave Buck ’77, Christie Hawkins, John Saurer, and the Flaten Art Museum.
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