– au revoir, D.C.

D.C. is a strange city; it feels like a bubble. It is a smallish, administrative city in a very very large and powerful country. It is rather anonymous. It seems, in this city of administration, power and museums, people live here for a few years, and it gives the city a neutral feel. I am sure the masses of security forces helps too. The city have some lovely, quirky neighbourhoods; places I could live. A little outside the centre, there is life. The city centre is over-dimensioned with bizarre architecture. A mish-mash of styles and taste. Sometimes it works, sometimes it is awful. A new nation cherry-picking world history.

We had the unbelievable privilege of working next to and with extremely dedicated, knowledgeable and kind people. Specialists in their fields, comfortable, sometimes eccentric, always friendly. We pretty much gatecrashed one guys office, and after our stay got extended, seemingly never left. Everyone either thought it perfectly fine, or did an excellent job of convincing us it was. I choose to believe it was genuine: all those anthropologists cannot be first rate actors as well. We kept the coffee brewing, and that seemed to be all that was required.

 

Our little contribution is not directly related; and us not being in their respective field was refreshing: to be able to ask stupid questions, to play with ideas. Form and content. Information technology calling human origins. We create what their knowledge and science is/will be channeled through. The aim is to make accessible something that is rather complex. I have been thinking hard for the last weeks, exhausting processes of twisting my brain into a knot, solving problems, keeping the main goal in sight while untying tiny problems, avoiding creating bigger ones. Being bugged by large problems while solving small ones. And sometimes the large problems presents solutions, if you don’t bother them too much for a while.

Thinking until it hurts, indeed. I bemoaned the lack of that in a previous post. Now I have created it for myself, and I get to taste my own medicine every day. It is inspiring and challenging. It hurts, and I love it. I find it hard to work on other things. This project have, on many levels, my full attention. It comes down to good people. If you have good people, you can do anything. Being rather misanthropic, good people are crucial.  I have had the luck of finding good team members, and the unbelievable luck of landing a project run by the best. To be a tiny, tiny little part of this. Is awesome.

There are plenty of walls to bang my head against. But it is learning and adventure all in one: it does not get any better than that.

Last pic on the roll, so to speak. The exhibition opens in six days… Good thing it is permanent, because it feels very wrong to miss out on it. One day we will have all the time in the world to dawdle, dilly-dally, saunter and meander.

Au revoir, D.C. ‘Till we meet again.

Took us 18 hours to get home this time. Not bad. AND my car started without a hitch, after three weeks in a swedish snowdrift.