The collection on the Corona crisis has now been largely completed, the House of History in Bonn has now reported. That sounds reassuring: Where would you rather locate Corona than in a museum? More than two years after the beginning of the pandemic, around 1,500 objects have come together. These include respirators of all kinds, first the colorful self-sewn ones, then the medical and FFP2 masks with and without a valve. Vaccination ampoules, official forms and children’s drawings were also collected. There are prohibition signs, for example for a “no dwelling zone” in Düsseldorf, but also protest posters by opponents of the Corona measures.
A beer wreath from the carnival session in the Heinsberg district, the first spreading event, symbolizes the beginning of the pandemic in Germany. The original ball, a supermarket sign that wants to discourage hamster purchases, is evidence of the first ghost game in the Bundesliga. A beer mug from the Munich Oktoberfest is representative of the many unusual folk festivals. Disposable gloves and a body bag from a funeral home are reminiscent of the corona dead, who still posed a risk of infection. A large part of the objects can already be accessed in the House of History’s online database.
Click through present and future
The corona pandemic has also found its way into the collection of the German Historical Museum (DHM) in Berlin, as well as into museums around the world. It is a new collection practice that is revealed here, it was first established in Anglo-Saxon countries, hence the English name: Rapid Response Collecting. In German, on the other hand, there is the term museum-ready. This is colloquially known as something that is so old and impractical that it is no longer useful. The term can also be understood as a reference to the fact that it usually takes a long time for an object of importance to make it into the museum.
But the practice of reacting quickly to current events has also become established in German museums. In doing so, they demonstrate their self-image as discursive houses. It’s not just about the past, even if both the DHM and the Bonn institution have the word history in their names. If you look at the collector’s items on the corona pandemic in Bonn’s online database, you have the anxious feeling of clicking through the present and, above all, the future.