coronavirus pandemic

LA's Natural History Museum Wants to Hear Your Pandemic Story

The museum is seeking to document the personal experiences of Southern Californians during the time of COVID-19.

Marta Dabrowska

What to Know

  • "Your Story Matters"
  • The Natural History Museum is collecting our experiences during the pandemic via an online site
  • The museum is temporarily closed

A moment like this one can feel full of diffuse emotions as well as deep desires to express what exactly is happening in our worlds, even if we don't know where exactly to share our tales.

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County wants to help in that regard.

To document this historic and intense time, and to ensure that individuals around our region have the chance to be heard, the Exposition Park destination has put out the call for anyone and everyone to tell their pandemic story.

"Your Story Matters" is the name of the colossal and connection-rich effort.

It's a project that "... will document its effects here in the Los Angeles region by encouraging all Angelenos to participate in this crowd-sourced project to collect and document how people, nature and communities have been impacted by the pandemic."

"Results of the storytelling and gathering initiative will become part of the museums’ permanent collection, with the goal to archive vital voices, diverse perspectives, and defining moments that shape the unique natural and cultural history of L.A., and may be content for future online exhibitions and public programs," shared the museum.

Something that ties the museum quite closely to this particular initiative? The Natural History Museum was closed from October to December in 1918, due to the influenza pandemic.

The institution, which is world-famous for its paleontology collection, its rare gems, and its tireless devotion to all aspects of the sciences and arts, does not house a large store of stories or artifacts from the 1918 flu. That's one reason, among many, that it is actively seeking to create a contemporary repository, one that spotlights personal reflections from the COVID-19 pandemic.

How have you been? What details or insights can you share from your life right now?

Visit Your Story Matters, at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County site, to learn more about this important, look-to-the-future project.

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