SUNDRE — The Sundre & District Museum wants to mount an exhibition next March showcasing how people in the area dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown.
Jaime L. Marr, the museum’s executive director, is asking people to send the museum anything they have in connection with that experience.
That can include photos of people locked down, making bread, or homeschooling.
Marr would also like letters or diaries from this period. She’s aware not many people write letters or diaries anymore but she says now might be a good time to start doing that.
Marr would also be happy to receive copies of texts people sent to each other outlining their frustration or experiences during the lockdown.
She chose next March as the date for the exhibit because that would be the one-year anniversary of the lockdown.
Marr got the idea for the exhibit after receiving an email from the Lacombe & District Historical Society which is undertaking a similar project.
She’s hopeful the Sundre display could become a travelling exhibit which could be set up in conjunction with other Central Alberta museums and eventually travel right across the country.
“A rural museum from Central Alberta travelling to a big city like Toronto, that would be awesome,” she said.
“I mean, as a smaller community in Central Alberta, our museums are often overlooked by city people, by urban people.
“They want to go to the large galleries. They want to go to the big provincially-owned galleries. But you forget how much history is in your rural museum. So it would be really neat,” she said.
Marr made the call out to the community for donations a few weeks ago. So far, she’s received some digital photos and a promise that “porchtraits (photos of people posing at their homes during the pandemic) will be donated as well.
Some teachers have sent some photos of empty classrooms or themselves working from home.
One woman has offered to drop off some face masks she’s made.
“I am hoping that some people do consider sending me their messages of frustration. You know, the sadness; ‘we’re trapped in our house with our kids,’” Marr said.
“I’m hoping at the end of the exhibit that you come out emotionally charged, feeling something.
“That’s our job as a museum – to create an experience for you. And we’re definitely using this time in history to record it.”
Marr would like the exhibit to connect with all five senses, so plans call for it to feature music and videos.
But she hopes smell will also be a part of it.
“I’d like the smell of baking to greet you when you come in, because as a mother myself, you’re home with your children a lot and so arts and crafts projects have become normal,” she said.
Marr is even open to creating the smell of burnt cookies in there.
“You know, I am horrible in the kitchen. So finding burnt cookie smell would be easy for me,” she said jokingly.
Marr said with all that involved, the exhibit has the potential to be one of the most technically involved displays they’ve ever mounted.
“When you leave the exhibit next year, I think it will be hopefully a funny reminder of what we had to endure,” she said.
