A Past Reflection

I just got back from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival down on the National Mall. The two regions the festival focused on this year were Armenia, and, the place where I studied abroad back in 2012: Catalonia. A lot of memories came back up as I meandered around the Mall, checking out all the cultural, food, and craft exhibits. I knew it was still in DC, but the festival had setup a mock plaça where there were dances and concerts, and it felt, for just a small moment, that I was back in Barcelona. There were umbrellas with places to sit along the edges, and even the occasional pigeon swooping into the square to try and sneak food from unsuspecting attendants. The arches had slotted roofs, and I brought my Armenian lavash to the performance space to see a traditional Catalan dance called a "sardana". It reminded me of the time that I went to a Sunday festival in Barcelona at the Plaça de la Seu in front of the Barcelona Cathedral (not to be confused for the Sagrada Familia).

A picture of the Plaça Major in front of the Department of Agriculture on the National Mall. Take away any hint of American folks, and the fact that the stage that says "Catalonia", you might think this was in Spain.

People wheeled around in the traditional dance, just like in Spain, and they put their bags in the middle, just like my experience. Albeit, the footwork wasn't as good as Catalonians, but otherwise, it was... Community. People were welcoming, and having a good time, and happy to be experiencing a music somewhere between a mariachi band and a medieval court.

After listening to and watching some sardanes, I moved over to watch some teams build human towers, or in Catalan: castelles, or literally- a castle. I also saw these when I was in Barcelona, and it is amazing to see them be built, and disassembled within a matter of two to three minutes. It was great to see the two teams that had traveled from Catalonia to perform in the festival, and to watch the crowd's reaction as the children, getting progressively younger, begin to climb to the higher tiers. (I mean, smaller children = less weight = easier to hold up at higher heights, right?)

A shot of the final "tower", which actually is three different towers lined up. The troop members are wearing light red/pink shirts, and the bottom tiers are made up of multiple layers of people for support.

One part of the castelles I forgot about was the music accompaniment. There is a small band of people playing instruments as part of a procession preceding the performance. It reminded me that Catalonian people are very proud of their culture and heritage, and they are no strangers to flaunting their uniqueness. The history of Catalonia and greater Spain is fascinating, and has been tumultuous since medieval times, and the tension continues to today. I saw this demonstrated quite well when I was in Catalonia for six weeks, and the demonstrations at the Mall were not shy to show off the history and tradition of the region.

The Folklife Festival spanned two weekends, and during this weekend the Hirshhorn Modern Art Museum was holding their yearly sound art focused event: Sound Scene. I went last year, and really enjoyed it despite the large crowds. This year there was specifically an artist "showing" his sound creation that related to Hiroshima and the atomic bombing of the city in World War II. It is titled: "Peace Resonance: Hiroshima/Wendover" I traveled to Hiroshima just last November, so I ran over after the human towers to experience the sound installation.

The idea behind the work was well done: The artist, Alan Nakagawa, had gone into two locations to simply record their static sounds- basically what they sounded like in that moment, with no modifications. One of these two places was the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome, the structure that was directly below the atomic bomb blast, and was still intact after the maelstrom destroyed much of the rest of the city. The other structure was a place called Wendover Hanger, which was the hanger from which the Enola Gay departed on it's way to the Pacific and with it's mission to drop the nuclear weapon on the city.

I actually did not take pictures of the Hiroshima Peace Park while I was there, so here is a photo of a diorama of the city showing how high up in the air the bomb exploded and the buildings it leveled, and damaged. (The red ball was detonation.) The Atomic Bomb Dome is on the shore of the river to the left of the red dot, and was made out of brick and steel, which helped it to withstand some of the blast.

Being in Hiroshima, I knew what the landscape and city looked like and felt like in person, but the Dome itself is closed off so nobody can get into it unless they get special permission. Mr. Nakagawa did get permission though, and setup three recorders around the dome. He also had the same setup in Wendover Hanger. After he collected the recordings he mashed them together in an audio experience, and mixed the audio in a very artistic way to emphasize certain aspects and portions.

For the performance, we received earplugs and a balloon when we came into the theater. Mr. Nakagawa told us the story, and showed us a short silent film on how he went about recording the sounds. Then we put in our earplugs, blew up our balloons, and were exposed to 17 minutes of recorded sounds from both places. The balloons helped capture and transmit the sound frequencies (which were quite loud, hence the earplugs) into a physical sensation, and we were encouraged to walk around the room because the three microphone recording setup was meant to capture the essence of the space and for it to be experienced from all vantage points.

There's a portion of sound installations that cannot be translated into text. The speakers transmitting the sounds obviously were the strongest, but walking around the room, one found certain pockets of nuanced sound. Along the walls were louder echos of the machines in the hanger, and of the birds chirping in the dome. In the middle of the room were uniform throbs of engines, and faint sounds of tourists talking at the gates of the Dome. Holding the balloon allowed one to feel the intensity of the experience: A cricket chirp here, a branch crunch there, a door sliding open to the right, and a plane taking off on the left. Then there was the sense of completeness from it all. The fact that the two experiences, from beginning to end, were linked in one product, and it seemed to be a gesture of closure, and of acknowledging the weight of the moment. The fact that life moves on, and that, in some sort of way, things will be okay.

After leaving the quick and impactful Hirshhorn visit, I went back to the Folklife Festival to catch any final concerts or demonstrations before the festival closed. Meandering around, I checked out the Armenian side of the festival, and tried to set aside my Catalonian bias. Walking around, I saw the unique script used for the language, and learned that it was created in the 300's in order to promulgate the nation's newly introduced religion of Christianity.  I also got to see bits of a wedding ceremony, as well as artists working on stone relief carvings, as well as beautiful rugs and carpets.

I poked my head into the marketplace, and bought some Catalonian vermouth and some killer jam made in Girona that I had at a dinner the day before with someone who had gone to the festival and bought it. I also saw a plethora of other folk arts, as well as a local DC artist's hand painted map of Barcelona, which I really wanted to buy, but I ended up passing up because of the price. Meandering back out with a bottle of vermouth and jam, I decided to head home and call it an early evening.

A street mosaic done in Catalonian tradition depicting icons and logos from this year's Smithsonian Folklife Festival. It was done with sand and rocks, and has flowers that create the Smithsonian's logo.

Thinking back on all of this has put me in a pretty substantial nostalgia trip for a place I unexpectedly came to love over the course of a summer. It also reminded me of the importance of place and it's role in people's lives. Place has always been a major factor in my life, and has entranced me for quite a while now. I am not entirely tied down to Ohio, but growing up in the Midwest instilled me with an appreciation for the land and the geography from which you originate, and in which you live. I've carried that forward, and it has laid at the heart of my desires and drive in life. Most people know that I love transit, and by extension transportation. While I do love to dive into the intricacies of transport, my uncanny draw to the subject is a reference for a greater love of geography, and the spatial relationships of objects in our physical world.

I love maps. Google Maps is kind of addictive to me. Sometimes I will simply go on Google Maps and get caught in a scrolling/street view loop to see what other parts of the world look like. Ever since the integration of Google Earth's 3D buildings and terrain, the service is the perfect time suck for me. Patterns of development, integrated landscapes, separations and barriers. They all entice my eye and my mind, and they make me wonder: "Why" and "how" is the "where" of the "what", and "who" determines that, and experiences it? Maps can lend you insight to some of these things, but culture can help fill out the answers, and economics can serve as a third factor, power structures yet another, and countless other aspects that shift the ratios of the ground level reality of experience of people.

Those places I've been, and that I've experienced, have only given me a small glimpse into the multi-faceted web that is our world, and a part of my soul is ever striving to see more, to live as much as I can in the time I've been allotted for this wild ride we call life.