Brook Wilensky-Lanford shares her thoughts on the closing MoMa exhibit “Access to Tools: Publications from the Whole Earth Catalog, 1968-1974”:

The name “Whole Earth,” I learned, came from Brand’s original mission, to have the government, NASA, release the pictures of our planet taken from space, pictures that showed the entire planet, together, in stunningly beautiful color. He thought that anyone who saw the picture would have their worldview irrevocably shaken toward unity and against division. The Whole Earth Catalog was never supposed to contain every single thing on the whole earth, but rather to embody this unifying spirit. This was the age of wholeness, whole language, whole grains, and whole foods, in the lower case. Our age is so different, so fractured, that the earnestness of this unifying mission makes me alternately scoff and want to weep.

Though the exhibit closes today, July 26, a digital version can be found at MoMA.org. Read Wilensky-Lanford’s post at Killing the Buddha for her insights into the project.