Quarantine objects: urgency of memory

ABSTRACT

This article deals with the urgency of building memory triggered by the pandemic of COVID-19. It compared it with the moment of the Spanish flu when people preferred to “forget to remember”, it refers to the movement of valuing memory and testimony in contemporary Western societies, and, using the documentary method, presents the collaborative project Objetos da Quarentena, whose proposal is to deepen the discussion on the role of objects in the intermediation of human relationships and the construction of memory in times of social isolation. The preliminary analysis points out that objects write and inscribe our memories, while we narrate this time of confinement.

KEYWORDS:
Urgency of memory; Material culture; COVID-19; Quarantine; Nostalgia; Testimony