Rachel Johnston, Art Critic, The Times, London, August 1, 2011:

How do you think the visual images of 9/11 have been/not been reflected in our/your cultural consciousness?
Can you tell me something in your own words about why you did your newspaper?
Do you think the power of the image that 9/11 imprinted on our minds has daunted artists?
Do you think that in many years time, when those directly affected by 9/11 are themselves dead, that more visual artists will feel they can claim the image as their own?

Aleksandra Mir: I think I can only speak for the work I have created myself.

9/11 is my Birthday. It was my Birthday and cause for celebration for 34 years before 2001. 9/11/01 was also the first public day of an exhibition I had just opened in Manhattan. I had friends from overseas in town and was planning a big party. We heard the news in the morning, watched TV for 5 minutes and then turned it off. Since nobody was going to work that day, we decided to go out and spend time with each other instead. Not far away from the epicenter, the rest of town stayed very very calm.  It was a very different image than what was beamed out to the world. I made several calls and sent emails to worried friends and relatives who could only imagine we were in hell. We weren't.  We walked to the hospital to give blood, only to be told we weren't needed. So as our little gang gathered up, we stayed in the park playing cards, enjoying the sunshine, each other and ending up in bar towards the evening. For the following weeks, the gallery dimmed its lights and we used it to gather more people and to socialize. In his first Village Voice article after the event, the hysterical art critics Jerry Saltz was speaking of a 'Paradigmatic Shift' in the arts, but personally I couldn't see any. Art doesn't happen that quickly and I am not so sure that as a community we even changed. We just got closer in those days.

6 months later I had processed all that the media had to say about the event, and it seemed more important than ever not to succumb to what had become a 9/11 industry. NYC that had always been a zone for free intellectual thought had already been claimed by mainstream America as its hub for patriotism. Souvenir peddlers were selling replicas of the towers at ground zero, so there really was no reason for an artist to depict them again. And we didn't trust the media. I never had. I had studied communications and so news were never transparent to me but as opaque as oil paint can be.

As part of my artistic practice, I have been creating zines and small press publications for many years. It is a low budget manageable format that gives an artist full creative control and integrity. So the idea of creating a fake tabloid newspaper with a free editorial policy, to reclaim my birthday the following year came naturally to me. I circulated an invitation to everyone I knew and had over 100 replies, photos, drawings, cartoons, political statements, interviews, recipes, absurdities, jokes that all doubled as birthday gifts. None were turned away. Everything gathered was up and printed the night before, and on the 1st anniversary of 9/11 I launched the paper 'hot off the presses' and staged a party. I still celebrate my birthday every year.

You can download the paper HERE.