The Sunday Times says

Documenting a pandemic for heritage

Heritage is not only about continuity but also change, not just about predictability but also disruption. Heritage, in a sense, is history in the making, a period that is still being lived through today. It is heartening then, that young Singaporeans are already shaping their heritage by documenting the times as they navigate through one of the most impactful events to have hit them in recent times. The coronavirus pandemic, which has given people more time at home because of measures which have curtailed socialising and external entertainment, has sparked the imagination and interest of the young, in particular, to discover and reflect on the times they are living through.

A digital magazine of visual and literary works about life under Covid-19, and a memory project which includes letters addressed to the coronavirus and photos of life at home during the period of circuit breaker measures are examples in which individuals have taken authorial responsibility for their times. Such efforts are their testimonies of these times and will become a part of heritage, which has always been a bridge between the past and the here and now. The pandemic has not only reshaped lives, but also forced people to reconsider the place of individual lives in the wider community. It has helped draw people closer together as perhaps some other life-changing events have done - like the cataclysm of the 1940s, when war and occupation destroyed the habits and expectations of the forebears of today's Singapore.

The destroyed parameters of that past were a captive memory that helped shape the formative worldview of that generation. Covid-19 will have a similar impact on today's generation. The young and, indeed the old, will look back at these times and ask how Singapore survived. The experiences of Singaporeans living today, recorded in print or digital time, will prove invaluable then.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on June 14, 2020, with the headline Documenting a pandemic for heritage. Subscribe