Image: Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art has opened an exhibition and screening program focused on Mel Chin’s '9-11/9-11', presented in connection with the museum’s '12th Hiroshima Prize Commemorative Mel Chin Exhibition'. The open-program presentation runs from July 25 to October 12, 2026, in the museum’s Media Library, with admission listed as free.
According to the museum, the display includes both Chin’s hand-drawn animated film '9-11/9-11' and '9-11/9-11 Graphic Novella'. The program is framed as a companion to the larger Mel Chin exhibition running at Hiroshima MOCA during the same period, though the museum’s notice separates the screening and display as a distinct open-program event.
The film '9-11/9-11' dates to 2007 and runs 24 minutes. The museum describes it as a fictional animated work written and directed by Chin that brings together two historical tragedies that occurred on the same date: the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and Chile’s 1973 military coup. The work was made with contributions from artists, voice actors and musicians in both countries. The museum says the animation explores how state violence is inscribed on personal lives and memory, and sets U.S. intervention abroad alongside violence on its own soil to illuminate the complex causes and effects surrounding terror and war.
The museum also notes that on September 11, 2007, the work was screened simultaneously in New York and Santiago through a live video link, creating a platform for dialogue across geographical and historical distance. That context is part of the institution’s interpretation of the piece within the current presentation.
Alongside the film, Hiroshima MOCA is showing '9-11/9-11 Graphic Novella', which it identifies as the precursor to the animated work. The publication was developed from a sequence of drawings Chin made in the 96 hours after the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001, and the museum says it was issued as a short graphic novel under the fictitious name Ignacio Morales. The museum further states that 1,000 copies were distributed for free on the streets of New York on September 11, 2002.
The artist entry on the museum page identifies Chin, born in 1951 and originally from Houston, Texas, as an artist now based in Egypt Township, North Carolina. Hiroshima MOCA characterizes his practice as spanning sculpture, drawing, painting, video, animation, video games and large-scale public installations, with projects often shaped by environmental concerns and other complex social issues. The museum also emphasizes his long-term collaborations with local residents and scientists as part of his broader exploration of how art can prompt social awareness and responsibility.
The exhibition and screening are scheduled daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except on Mondays, with the museum noting that it will open on September 21 and October 12, and will be closed on September 24. The venue is Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art’s Media Library, at 1-1 Hijiyama Park, Minami Ward, Hiroshima City.
