Recollecting COVID-19 competition announcement

This year in March, the UP Archives launched the “UP Archives Recollecting COVID-19 - 365 days under lockdown” competition. Students, faculty members, administrators, researchers and alumni were invited to share how this period of social distancing and self-quarantine had shaped and changed their lives. The UP community responded overwhelmingly with poems, essays, videos, songs and artworks telling of the heartache of losing loved ones and the challenges of teaching, researching and studying remotely.  But also of the triumphs of completing a degree, achieving a medical breakthrough and reconnecting with friends and family.

This collection of memories will be preserved in the UP Archives and is a valuable resource for future researchers from all disciplines to understand and learn how our University community responded and managed during this crisis. In addition, to showcase these remarkable contributions and to make it accessible to a wider audience, all the contributions will be published digitally by the Faculty of Humanities’ Emerging Scholars’ Initiative Press (ESI Press -- https://esipress.up.ac.za) in March 2022, when we mark two years since the beginning of lockdown. You can read up more on the results here.