Portrait of the Curator

Every museum eventually hangs a portrait of the person who built it, usually in oils, usually looking pleased with themselves. This is mine, and it is a silhouette on purpose. A bust with no features, headphones on, dark against the mat. The thin orange line around it is the only vanity I allowed.

I keep the face off it for two reasons. The first is that a museum should be about the things, not the curator — the moment my face is the exhibit, the collection has lost the plot. The second is truer: I do most of my thinking with the headphones on and the world turned down, and that shape — head, shoulders, a band across the top — is closer to how I actually feel from the inside than any photograph has ever been. If you want to know who runs this place, it’s the one listening. The rest of the wings will tell you the rest.