Installation

And finally I get my life back! The exhibition is open (although not quite finished), the festival is complete, and I'm almost healthy again. So this coming week is a staycation to clean the house, and do all the personal things I've had to ignore the last couple of months. Including a bit of blog.

The next couple of posts will focus on the Folklife Festival, and particularly on the Q'eswachaka suspension bridge. But first, I'll share a few behind-the-scenes photos from the installation of The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire | El Gran Camino Inka: Construyendo un Imperio. I started work on this, in a round-about way, about seven years ago with the curator, when we worked together in the same department. Things shifted and we both moved around. Then 2.5 years ago, I was put in charge of the whole project, to get it done. So that's what I'm doing.

There's been a phenomenal team working on this, and I'm so lucky to have the chance to learn about so many different parts of museum practice. As a project manager, it's sometimes hard to describe what I do. I'm not a curator; I'm not a textile conservator. I don't build cases, I don't design the gallery, and I don't do the media. Instead, I work with all of those folks. I try to support them, while monitoring the budget and the schedule. I work very closely with the exhibition manager on everything in the four walls of the gallery, and then I directly oversee everything outside of that, from making sure PR and web have the images and info they need to ensuring translations are consistent, from developing the family activity guide to coordinating the opening activity calendars and diplomatic needs. I have to know the big picture, and how the items relate to each other, how a delay or problem in one place will impact others. Some days it's a madhouse where I feel like I'm the only one who can make a decision. And I know that my decisions are answerable to the director. But it's also very rewarding. Although I've always liked museums, I never imagined how complicated exhibitions are. I do love that I have a job that teaches me something new all the time.

So, hopefully this provides a little glimpse of the magic that happens before the doors open. Note that we spell Inka with a k and Cusco with an s, as these are the official Quechua spellings, and the museum supports indigenous language wherever we can.

 These amazing pots are called arybalos and are a signature Inka vessel. These are waiting to get placed on their mounts in the big case.

 Watching the mount makers work is amazing. Each mount is specially constructed for the object and the type of display. This big vessel has a heavy steel mount.

 Cases are individually built, along with the decks and the mounts. Labels and signs are another element. Finally the case goes into place. This one took a forklift and four crew aside from the forklift driver- two to hold the case edges, one to spot the case for the driver as it was raised among the gallery lights, and the foreman to spot the case over the objects and case wall. 

 Large oversize panels help convey the sense of grandeur and monumentality of Inka architecture, double panels even mimicking the trapezoidal shape of windows. We developed all new maps for this show too, and what a process that was....

 Huge landscape photos show the topography in each of the four suyus, or regions. They are quite breathtaking.

 Ack! How did my photo end up here? Actually, it was rather by luck. It looks pretty fabulous though! I do hope I'll get to keep it when this is all done.

 Early test for the engineering interactive. Some pieces are still missing....

 And the letters are up! Wow, they look great.

 I like this case, especially the little llama figurine made from Spondylus princeps shell, known as mullu to the Inka. Talk about early science: these shells were El Niño predictors.

 Amazing photos of the Q'eswachaka suspension bridge, the last remaining grass bridge still maintained today. This bridge is a wonderful story....

 The big colonial qero that is the signature imagery for all the product developed for the exhibition, from t-shirts to tote bags. Qeros were ceremonial drinking cups, developed in pairs, that represented duality and reciprocity.

 Feather objects from the region knows as Antisuyu, the rainforest area of the empire. The dance belt on the left is fairly modern, but the tunic on the right is 500-1000 years old!

 Little offering jars in the shape of llamas. Love them!

 Metal work, gold, silver, and bronze. The riches of the Americas changed the world, one of the key themes of the exhibition.

 Ah, I thought my installation team was going to hate me. Of all the people who could have recognized this object.... Astonishingly, I knew this piece. Years ago, when we still had an international unit, my director had handed it to me after President Morales of Bolivia had just presented it to him as a gift. Having had to watch it for the rest of the afternoon's events, then be sure it got safely to the collections vault, it's no surprise that I recognized it, nor that it now has a special plaque noting that it was a State gift.

 I just love these hats. This case highlights identity and diversity. To this day in the Andes, indigenous peoples can tell from what village another comes by the hat they wear.

 Two pre-Inka pieces. At the beginning are four cases that highlight cultures that pre-dated the Inka and testify that the Americas were not a wilderness before the Europeans arrived. The incensario on the right is also a phenomenal conservation story; check out the NMAI blog to learn more. puma incensario conservation

 At the entrance, the light boxes for the main images go into place.

 The table is here! This is a cutting-edge media interactive, and we couldn't wait to finally see it. We're still de-bugging, but wow is it amazing.

 I'm especially excited about it because I don't get to do much content, but I did get to work on this, particularly with the consultants based in Barcelona who built the 3D map/reconstruction of the city of Cusco at the height of the Inka Empire. Read more about the table here: Cusco Experience

 And the timeline wall graphics are in, again with those trapezoidal window shapes highlighting some of the spectacular collection.

 And an actual timeline (we somehow haven't really used these) to showcase early cultures of the Americas.

And the graphics are in; almost ready for opening!

 The final pieces before opening were actually temporary items, noting where the section of the suspension bridge will eventually reside. Owing to the good luck that had Peru as the featured country of this year's Folklife Festival, and the renovation of the National Mall which forced Folklife to the plot of land in front of the NMAI, the Q'eswachaka bridge builders were in Washington, building a bridge on the Mall, right outside the museum. The museum received the bridge once Festival was completed.

And the bridge is now in two parts: one part is in a freezer in Pennsylvania, on its way to the museum in New York for storage until it is installed next spring as part of the imagiNATIONS Activity Center in development there, and the other part is now out of the freezer in DC, drying out, and awaiting fire retardant treatment. It will be installed in this space the beginning of August.

We had so many people for the opening! Many diplomats, many of the consultants who helped us with the project, many of our contractors. And people were so excited! I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the negative items, but so far.... One colleague kindly told me the other day that I dealt with so much negative getting the crazy thing open that we only should have positive now. I hope she is right! That would be very nice; the team deserves that.

So while we finish installing the mechanical interactives, and work on final script updates and redoing the panels with typos (oops! doesn't matter how many people proof these things....), programming is getting going and we're starting the evaluation process and lessons learned. There will be a lot of those, good and bad. My other projects are now clamoring for attention and a new (only slightly massive) project is peeking over the horizon. But first, I'll share the magic of the suspension bridge. And schedule some vacations! And if you get to DC before June 1, 2018, come see the gallery.