Some of Nelson-Tasman will recall the Covid-19 lockdown as a month of basking in the golden autumn sun.
Autumn sun over Nelson and Tasman Bay. Photo: RNZ / Tracy Neal
Others will recall being ill in hospital with the virus, the discomfort of the twizzle-stick test up each nostril, the agony of being forced apart from family members, or the abject fear of losing a job or a business.
The effects of the global pandemic on Nelson-Tasman are to be documented for future generations in a collaboration between the Nelson Provincial Museum and Nelson Public Libraries.
The Nelson Provincial Museum was founded in 1841 as the Literary and Scientific Institution of Nelson.
Chief executive Lucinda Blackley-Jimson said the global reach of Covid-19 was likely to be a defining moment in the history of the 21st century.
"We are living history. This is one of the moments that the people who come after us will look back and see how we did, and how we experienced life.
"We want to create a record that will tell our descendants about this time, which is a really extraordinary experience and one I'm sure we hope won't be repeated quickly."
Blackley-Jimson said while Nelson had so far not been badly affected by the virus, it would remain a watershed moment of life before and after for the region.
"There will be life before and there will be life afterwards: travel before this lockdown happened and travel afterwards.
"Things are going to be changing so much and in ways we can't really envisage - it will be really unpredictable."
Photo: Supplied / Nelson Provincial Museum
Stories collected will be added to local records of the 1918 influenza pandemic, the world wars and natural disasters in the region, such as the 1929 Murchison earthquake and the 2019 Pigeon Valley wildfires.
The museum had already identified and contacted a cross-section of people for inclusion in the record, including frontline workers such as medical personnel, supermarket workers, truck drivers, first responders and rest home carers along with small business owners, iwi representatives, diarists, historians, photographers and artists.
Blackley-Jimson said they also wanted to hear from people observing lockdown at home with their families or alone, to the homeless and what their experiences had been like.
"We're inviting people to comment from their own particular perspectives."
'Personal stories ... simply invaluable for future generations'
The library has introduced a Life in the Bubble campaign to connect with members of the general public.
The library's community programmes coordinator, Rosamund Feeney, said one of its hidden strengths was how it incited the telling of oral histories.
Sectors of the community have been approached for forms of poetry, art, journals, oral histories, video, photographs, objects and crafts which were some of the ways to capture personal experiences of the country's united efforts against the virus.
Blackley-Jimson said some people were already recording their thoughts and feelings.
"This can be helpful in processing what is happening to them personally, with their whānau 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."
Blackley-Jimson said planning the project began when lockdown started, but it had just been launched.
"We had to make sure we gave it enough thought; that we were going to come up with something that was really robust and worthwhile."
She said museums were facing a wider challenge of how best to represent huge societal changes in their collections.
"In this case, the stories are going to be the most important thing."
