Local Curator Heals 9/11 Ghosts with Street Art Show

John Carr was just north of ground zero on 9/11, locking up his bike at 8:46 a.m. as the first plane hit the Twin Towers. He stayed watching, shuddering until they fell. “It was horrific, like a bad nightmare that you don't wake up from,” he said. “ I still have flashbacks from time to time.” 

Born in Northern California, Carr moved to Los Angeles in 2002. “The New York City I knew had faded into the past,” he said. “I found L.A. to be welcoming and energetic.”

Today Carr, 42, is at ground zero of Los Angeles’s hot street art scene as the co-curator of the show LA vs War. The mix of art, performance, activism and education will take place Sept. 9-11 in at the Vortex Gallery in downtown L.A. 

Carr says the show is his way of making sense of 9/11 and the events that followed.  “The show is about healing,” he said.

LA vs War will feature many Angeleno street artists, who paint on walls and other outside structures. Carr said they’re especially well-poised to understand the “multitude of wars” that go on every day, as is he in his own way.

Patch sites across the country have profile people like John Carr whose lives were changed by 9/11. 

See an epic "911 Profile 9/11" collage compiled by the Huffington Post by clicking here.