Flag

Flag of Remembrance, 2001-2004

Description

This handmade flag, known as the Flag of Remembrance, features the faces and names of 9/11 victims, with photographs of uniformed first responders forming the blue field and stripes of white and red composed of photographs of civilians.

Historical Notes

The Flag of Remembrance was conceived in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks by Mindy Kombert and Sherry Kronenfeld, who owned a graphic design business in Chappaqua, New York. Grappling with the death toll and moved by the missing person posters around New York City, they sought to commemorate the scale of loss with an American flag comprised of images of the victims.
 
Kombert and Kronenfeld solicited portraits from victims’ families and employers. After transferring the images to individual pieces of fabric, Kombert sewed them together over the course of three years. First responders appear in the flag’s blue field between the words of the Firefighter’s Prayer. Civilians are shown inside the red and white stripes. Memorial candles represent roughly half of the victims, for whom portraits were unavailable at the time.