Recently, I completed a job at one of my dream institutions: The Smithsonian. Along with National Geographic, the UN, and other brand names, the Smithsonian was a place I knew I had to work.
I have been fascinated with history the natural world since I could read. Here are some of my favorite things as a kid: crystal-growing kits, animal fact flashcards, and immersing myself in magazine articles about tribes of the Amazon. I have always taken an interest in the world outside, and it was in these early years that I learned about Zahi Hawas, the Masai, the Tuareg, or coelecanths – and never forgot.
I had a freakish knowledge about a wide range of subjects, even body parts and medical conditions, from reading the collection of encyclopedias and old textbooks my parents had saved for me. Maybe this is why my interests range so widely today.

All of this to say that I enjoy museums greatly because they represent  a repository for knowledge, one which may as well be infinite because there is so much to explore! I get high off that feeling.

Anyway, I was thrilled to have a position at one of the Smithsonian museums on the National Mall–The Hirshhorn–for its blockbuster Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrors exhibition. These are the photos you’ve seen on Instagram with all the twinkly lights and the endless walls of glittery lanterns. Celebrities had taken photos in rooms at earlier installations around the country, further fueling the craze in DC (Thanks Adele!).

For those who couldn’t reserve on the perpetually “sold out” online system, there was a line of consistently over 1000 ticket hopefuls. On our last weekend we likely had over 3,000 people in line. I say this to give you an idea of the traffic we were working with in the museum. This was a cultural phenomenon—we had students, senior citizens, Instagram models, and international tourists who all waited together to get a piece of this hype.

There were five infinity rooms, about the size of a small bathroom, all covered in mirrors, including the door. There was a narrow walkway that cut in to the field of each room with just enough space for up to three visitors to contemplate their reflections among the lights. But let’s be real, they were taking selfies. So was I!

In between the mirror rooms were works on paper and photographs from NYC in the 60’s when Kusama was in her creative prime and doing trendy things like lying in a mass of fabric phalli in the streets or painting naked people in polka dots—herself included. Then there were her sculptures, reaching out from the pasty white floors like the tentacles of a black and yellow sea monster. And at last a small selection of her most recent paintings, done from a mental health facility in Japan. In these we see more color, more pattern, less dimension, something amoeba-like.

And after the chaos of the snaking lines, moving in 30-second (sometimes less) intervals, and the roaring hum of indistinct conversation, there was the Obliteration Room. As the last stop, and only interactive part of the show, visitors were handed a sheet of punchy polka dots to adorn the white-washed room of Ikea furniture. No time limit, no restrictions; just people putting stickers on the floor, the walls, the table and chairs, and of course on themselves.