Collected Item: “Taking my plants home for a month”
Give your story a title.
Taking my plants home for a month
What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?
Screenshot of social media
Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.
On March 17, 2020 I drove to the university campus where I work to retrieve materials from my office and to rescue my plants. The WHO had just declared the pandemic. My university administration had sent an email in the late afternoon saying that the campus buildings would be closing for a month starting at midnight that same day. So I rushed to campus to grab some essentials. It was surreal to enter my office and pack it up when just days before things felt normal but there was a growing sense of dread. I saw this artwork in my office - I keep it to help me remember that hard times can be turned around through a shift in perspective. It cheered me up as I packed up my plants. I posted about it, saying that I was packing up my office for 'a month at home'. I've been working from home and teaching from home for over a year now. Campus remains closed to non-essential activities. My plants have taken over our unused guest room in the ensuing year. When I look at this I am viscerally reminded of that day and how much uncertainty there was - and naiveté about what we were in for.
Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?
oshawa,artwork,work-from-home,university,naive
Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)
Christopher Collins
Give this story a date.
2020-03-17