Babylon

Laura had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Jonathan Taylor, the curator of the current Babylon exhibit at the British Museum. This is the third in a cooperative touring exhibition that began in Paris and continued in Berlin. The museums collaborated in allowing each other to choose items from their combined collections and to stage individualized exhibitions. The British Exhibition surprised me on a couple levels. First, I was easily the youngest person there by more than 20 years. The lady next to me fell asleep and snored. Second, rather than discuss particular pieces of the exhibit as I had expected, the curator talked about why and how our knowledge of Babylon is shaped by and reflected in popular culture. From Rastafarian music, which uses the idea of Babylonians who imprisoned the Israelites as a parallel for the modern oppression of people of African descent, to the U.S. television series Babylon 5 to the U.K's glitzy and popular Hotel Babylon to advertising, the media and modern day corporate interests create our image of Babylon as a decadent and sensual place. Because perception is reality, we think we know it, or at least we have an image in our minds. But most of us really don’t know much beyond the little bit we might have learned at school, what we see reflected in pop culture and, perhaps, what we have read in the Bible. Babylon was one of the first great cities of one of the earliest great civilizations, I’m looking forward to exploring it through this exhibit.