Things we made because we could not go anywhere.
In 2020 a large part of humanity discovered, all at once, that it owned an oven. The objects below are reconstructions. No original banana bread survived the period.
The Banana Bread
Baked by roughly everyone, often twice a week. Made from bananas that had been left to brown for this exact purpose, which felt like a plan.
The Sourdough Starter
A jar of flour and water that needed feeding every day, which gave many of us something to feed every day. Several were given names. Some were mourned.
The Thousand-Piece Puzzle
Started with confidence, abandoned at the sky. Found again in a cupboard two years later, still missing one corner piece that was definitely in the box.
The Home Haircut
Performed in kitchens with scissors meant for paper. The collection holds no photographs of the results, at the request of the subjects.
The Dalgona Coffee
Whipped for eleven minutes by hand to produce a drink that was, by most accounts, fine. The point was the whipping.
The Pyjama Bottoms
Worn below every serious video call of the year. A shirt above, comfort below. A whole civilisation, split at the desk.
Adopt a starter. Name it. It will not judge you.
Born on a Tuesday in April. Rises when nobody is looking. Smells faintly of ambition.
8pm. Every evening. Everyone.
For weeks, at the same hour, whole streets opened their windows and clapped for the people who could not stay home: nurses, doctors, carers, cleaners, cashiers, drivers. Pots were banged. Neighbours who had never spoken learned each other's faces.
Add your applause. Each clap lights a window on the building. The building does not forget.
The street is quiet. For now.
Places we pretended to be.
The great tropical beach, the Golden Gate Bridge, the deck of a spaceship, and that one bookshelf curated with suspicious care. Below, reconstructions of the most common views, as seen by a frozen colleague.
The actual solution.
The name of this site is a joke, and the joke stops here. No bread, no jar, no balcony solved anything. What did:
- Science, done fast and in the open by researchers all over the world.
- Vaccines, developed, tested and distributed at a scale nobody had seen before.
- Caregivers, who showed up every single day while the rest of us baked.
This museum is our way of saying thank you, and of keeping the soft parts of a hard time. For anything related to your health, please ask a doctor, not a website about banana bread.