Local cultural heritage organisations encourage records of life in the bubble

The Nelson Provincial Museum and Nelson Public Libraries are encouraging people from the Nelson Tasman region to record their experiences as they move through the COVID-19 Alert Levels, and may select some of these records for inclusion in the Museum’s Regional Heritage Collection.

The Museum has already identified and contacted a cross-section of people in the region for records, while the Library, in partnership with the Museum, has introduced a ‘Life in the Bubble’ campaign to connect with members of the general public.

Sectors of the community approached by the Museum include front line workers such as medical personnel, supermarket workers, first responders and rest home carers, along with small business owners, iwi representatives, diarists, historians, photographers, artists and others. Physical or digital forms of poetry, art, journals, oral histories, video, photographs, objects and crafts are just some of the ways in which people are being invited to capture their personal experiences of the country’s united efforts against the virus. 

“We are all in the middle of a global phenomenon which may turn out to be one of the defining historic moments of the 21st century”, says Nelson Provincial Museum CEO Lucinda Blackley-Jimson. “We know that some people are already recording their thoughts and feelings during this time. This can be helpful in processing what is happening to them personally, with their whanau and with the wider world. But these personal stories may also become fascinating insights for people to look back on, and can, in a museum context, be simply invaluable for future generations.”

Collections reflecting an individual’s experience of a shared moment are in keeping with the Nelson Tasman Regional Heritage Collection, of which the Museum is the kaitiaki. The Collection contains a great depth of resources such as diaries, photographs and artworks that reveal what it was like to live through other epochal events.

Records of the 1918 influenza pandemic, the world wars, and natural disasters such as the Murchison earthquake and the more recent Pigeon Valley fires are all held in safekeeping at the Museum for the community to appreciate and from which they can learn. Personal records from local historical figures and early settlers, such as Frederick Gibbs and Alfred Fell, have gone on to inform critical displays at the Museum, and collection items have helped hundreds of students, researchers and family historians to gain deeper insights into critical times for the region.

Records related to COVID-19 that are selected for inclusion in the Museum’s collection will help the local community deepen its understanding of this extraordinary moment in the region, and the Museum’s collaboration with Nelson’s Public Libraries presents an opportunity to compile a dynamic range of materials.

“One of the Libraries’ hidden strengths is in how we incite the telling of oral histories”, says Library Community Programmes Coordinator Rosamund Feeney. “Our team at the front desk are always being told stories by our visitors – we get a lot of talkers here! We’re looking to capture these conversations more formally once we are open again.” 

Any submissions of records to the Museum will be assessed against collecting criteria, including, how they represent certain aspects of the region during lockdown and in the aftermath. If you would like to discuss the submission of physical COVID-19-related material please contact the Museum on enquiries@museum.org.nz. Digital material can be submitted immediately via the Libraries website: http://www.nelsonpubliclibraries.co.nz/library/life-in-the-bubble