I am deep into research, trying to wrangle information gathered from archives into a neat container that one calls a thesis. I’ve come to recognize this feeling from research projects past and my favourite metaphor is one of travel…

Craig Mod in his final picture of a pop-up newsletter called “Huh” captured the feeling in a few phrases: “what I remember most about this moment is how foreign and unknowable it all felt, an impenetrable newness, and for a second five lives (Derro just out of frame) converge and information is exchanged and, with a dollop of confidence, we take the very first steps of the long walk that starts it all.”

Burrowing into the past is much like travelling to another country… You have to find your bearings - the people and the places that were different, the organizations that existed then that don’t now, the customs that were common then but sound so unusual now.