Ground Zero: Nighttime All Over the World evokes an environmental response to the devastation of September 11, 2001. A month after the 9/11 attack, Thornton Dial visited New York City and stayed in a hotel a few blocks from Ground Zero. Moving through the still-burning landscape, the artist witnessed the catastrophe’s aftermath. Dial assembled discarded clothing, industrial materials, and paint to remember his impressions of the site at night. He emphasized the cavity left in the earth, glowing with molten embers. Blue-and-white polka-dotted fabric evokes ash floating into a starry sky. These everyday remnants, salvaged and layered together, become symbols of both destruction and earth’s regenerative potential. “Art is future life,” the artist explained. “A piece of art is like the movement of the clouds, or the sun in the sky...constant, moving, always changing.”