Volunteer diarists from Hastings sought to chronicle experiences during coronavirus pandemic

Hastings Museum and Art GalleryHastings Museum and Art Gallery
Hastings Museum and Art Gallery
Hastings residents are being asked to consider taking part in a project to record these extraordinary times for future generations.

In a project launched today, Hastings Museum and Art Gallery is seeking volunteers willing to record their experiences of living under lockdown and how their lives have changed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Participants would be asked to keep a daily journal, charting the day-to-day experiences and the impact of the virus on ordinary life.

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Kim Forward, leader of Hastings Borough Council said: “Coronavirus (COVID-19) has transformed every part of our lives in just a few weeks.

“We are experiencing restrictions on our daily lives that have never happened at any point in our country’s history before.

“As this is such an important point in our history, we believe it’s essential for the museum to start recording what’s happening.

“We’re recruiting volunteers to keep a journal about their experience of living through the Coronavirus crisis.”

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According to museum staff, they are interested in people’s individual experiences of living through the COVID- 19 crisis, and how this is impacting on their work, hobbies, relationships, emotions and perspectives on life.

The journals would be kept as part of the museum’s collection, potentially being used in future collections 

A spokesman for the museum said: “We’re asking participants to write as much or as little as they feel like each day, but we would like them to write something every day.

“The journals, we hope, will show the happy experiences as well as the difficult bits.

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We are asking people to donate their journal to the museum collection when the pandemic is over. 

“This means it will become part of our collections and be used in the future to help people understand what this experience was like for ordinary people. 

“The journals may get used in future exhibitions and online to explain what it was like in Hastings during the COVID-19 crisis.”

If you live in or around Hastings, and are interested in taking part, email [email protected] for more details.

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