oa Coronacollecties in musea en archieven

Corona collections in museums and archives. Observations and recommendations on contemporary collecting

Shortly after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, museums and archives worldwide started to document and ‘collect’ daily life, often with help of the public, to safeguard the ‘historical present’ for the future. In this contribution, we investigate ‘Covid-19 heritage collections’ as a form of contemporary collecting: acquiring heritage for the future in the present-day context. With Rotterdam as a case-study, we unravel different strategies with which Covid collections have been created, showing that different strategies lead to different results. Strikingly, ‘Unselective collecting’ with help of the public has been very inclusive as a strategy, but has resulted in less inclusive collections, in which many experiences and perspectives are underrepresented. We conclude with five practical recommendations to make both the Covid heritage collections as created, and contemporary collecting as a practice more meaningful and inclusive.