Canadian artist John Coburn commemorates 25th anniversary of 9/11

The exhibition is open to the public and will run from Sept. 1-12 at 918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media and Education.

Published Sep 01, 2026  •  Last updated 2 hours ago  •  2 minute read

The Healing Hearts drawings. Years after John Coburn created these drawings, a studio fire destroyed virtually everything inside. Remarkably, this collection survived. The drawings had been stored together in a leather briefcase. It was the only thing recovered from the fire. The drawings were burned around their edges yet remained perfectly intact. Photo by "Courtesy of 9/11 Memorial & Museum, Gift of Canadian artist, John Coburn and Thomas G. Beckett, Beckett Fine Art Ltd.”

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The U.S. Consulate General Toronto will commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11 with a special exhibition this month. 

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The exhibition, 25 Years of Healing Hearts: A Tribute to 9/11 in Drawings, by Canadian artist John Coburn will open on Sept. 1, and will feature 10 of his drawings on loan from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.

“September 11, 2001, was not just a tragedy in the United States, but for so many people around the world, including 24 Canadian citizens who lost their lives that day,” said U.S. Consul General Baxter Hunt. “That was a time when Canadians joined Americans in grief as friends and neighbours.”

The exhibition is open to the public and will run from Sept. 1-12 at 918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media and Education. 

Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes loaded with fuel; two planes hit the north and south towers, causing both skyscrapers to collapse. 

Like a nightmare sequence straight out of a Hollywood movie, the artist himself couldn’t bear to watch the unthinkable happen on that clear and warm day in New York City. 

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“I couldn’t watch what was happening on TV,” Coburn said. “I needed to be there … to see and feel the pain firsthand.  I found myself drawing the devastation at Ground Zero, but it was at St. Paul’s Chapel where I began to experience something else: extraordinary acts of love, care and compassion emerging from unimaginable loss.  A chaplain suggested that perhaps my drawings could deal with the theme of healing.” 

Of the 2,977 people killed in the 9/11 attacks, not counting the terrorists, 24 of them were Canadian.

A third plane crashed into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., and a fourth plane crashed into a rural field in Shanksville, Pa., after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers. 

“I was working at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa at the time, and I’ll never forget the outpouring of support that we had from Canadians, including 100,000 Canadians who came to Parliament Hill in a show of solidarity with us,” Hunt said. “This exhibition offers us an opportunity to remember together and to reaffirm the enduring bonds and shared values that unite our two countries.” 

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An RCMP vehicle watches over an Air France plane at the Gander International Airport during 9/11. Photo by file photo

Open arms

The U.S. shut down its civilian airspace for the first time in the country’s history on that day. More than 235 U.S. bound and international flights were redirected to Canada. Approximately 33,000 stranded travellers were welcomed and accommodated. 

Gander, Nfld., received 38 flights, carrying more than 6,500 people. The town’s population increased from approximately 9,500 before 9/11, growing to approximately 16,000 in the hours that followed the bombings.

“Twenty-five years later, if these drawings can remind us, not only today, but for generations to come, of our shared responsibility to each other, then they have fulfilled their purpose,” Coburn said.  

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