By: Rebecca Dolgoy
Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation
Looking ahead to the historical significance of COVID-19 objects
2 m
Apr 25, 2020
Media
Photo Credit
Rebecca Dolgoy
Plexiglass shield and barrier at White Cross Dispensary
It is strange living through something that you know is historically significant. As we navigate the unchartered waters of COVID-19, it’s challenging for curators — who usually collect and care for the past — to try to imagine, in real time, what will be important for us in the future.
Photo Credit
Ingenium
Vaccine, 2002.0073
Curatorial work often interprets the presence of the past. For example: How does this vial of polio vaccine make us think about public health and research today? Curatorial work under COVID-19 compresses our experience of objects in time. For example: How might the plastic shield at the pharmacy be experienced by those in the future, who are trying to understand how it felt to live during this global epidemic? How are you documenting your own experience of COVID-19? How do think this will be remembered?
Ingenium’s curators will examine these questions and more as part of our “Curating Under Quarantine” initiative.
Rebecca Dolgoy
Rebecca Dolgoy is the Curator of Natural Resources and Industrial Technologies at Ingenium
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