Lunch Hour

There is no promise on this becoming a regular feature, but if it does, this is the first of the series. The idea is that if I continue to visit D.C. museums during my lunchtimes, I will convey some of what I see and learn to my readers. I welcome your feedback and input on the contents and format of this feature as it is in its formative stages.

Today, I walked a block down to the National Geographic building. I've already exhausted the "Dogs" exhibit in their mini-museum, so I moved on through the courtyard to the lobby art exhibit in their main building. World Refugee Day is June 20th, and in honor of that event, National Geographic let the UN High Commission on Refugees set up a small exhibit outside, consisting of two frame tents, each filled with the rudimentary supplies given to new refugee families. Heavy plastic sheeting and a few blankets protect them from the elements, and a bag of water, a can of vegetable oil, a sack of grain, and a handful C-rations complete the package.

The art exhibit itself was excellent. It featured mononymous Afghan photographer Zalmai, who fled his home with the first wave of refugees in 1980. The photographs were not a plotless documentary, but a story, in which the main characters are the photographer and his nation. He wrote in a short introduction that this was his third tour as a photographer for a Western newspaper in Afghanistan. In 1996 and 2000 (I think) he did shoots first of the civil war and then of the refugee camps under the Taliban. As always he used black and white film. However, when he covered the liberated country in 2001 and 2002, he used for the first time color film to capture the hope and life returning to the people. You can view a selection of the shots online.

In another wing, the UNHCR exhibited photos from a school-kid contest on the theme "A Place to Call Home". Most of the photos were what you would expect of elementary, middle, and high-schoolers, though obviously far above average. One artist - a 12th grader named Tania Ku - stood out noticeably. She could become a professional if she keeps up the quality of work she showed there: an oil painting of four overlapping scenes, with excellent coloring and exceptional detail.