How to Remember a Plague 如何銘記一場瘟疫
Laura Bliss 蘿拉·布利斯
In normal times， future historians probably really wouldn't care about what you had for breakfast， or saw on the way to work， on any particular day. But that changed in 2020， and so did the instinct to document. In a pandemic that touched virtually every person and aspect of life on Earth， the ordinary was imbued with world-historical significance， inspiring an outburst of archival projects to capture how regular people lived through an unprecedented year.
Universities， libraries， and local historians on at least four continents are leading many such memory-preservation efforts. Some are managed by revered institutions， while others are scrappier， intimate. In the former camp is the Library of Congress in Washington， D.C.， which has crowdsourced more than 1，700 photographs of American Covid experiences from Flickr users since September.
In truth， the Library has always done this. In the 1930s and '40s， the Farm Security Administration funded a photographic archive that， employing now-iconic photographers like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans， deeply influenced how lawmakers and the public understood the hardships of rural poverty. And its collections are full of images and documents that reveal how everyday Americans lived through countless world-changing events， including the 1918 influenza pandemic， the most recent public health crisis that is comparable in scale. Recent acquisitions include new works by Camilo J. Vergara， a photographer known for documenting urban change， depicting the outer boroughs of New York City transformed by face masks and tented test sites billowing in the wind.
But unlike the Spanish flu， Covid-19 struck humanity in an era of hyper self-awareness. Swaddled with smartphones， 5G， and user-generated digital media， millions of people were equipped to understand how huge of a deal this was， and had the tools to document it. For that reason， the coronavirus crisis will likely create a different kind of impression in the historical record than its predecessors， said James Connolly， a professor of history at Ball State University.
「One of the most striking things about the 1918 flu pandemic is that no one really talked about it afterwards，」 Connolly said.「If you go back to the 1920s， it was not front and center in that period. I don't think that will happen with Covid — it's being documented in so many ways， particularly by middle-class， educated people who have resources to record their experiences. I think that the memories will be intense.」
The pandemic also physically marking the landscape， in ways that may be permanent. In the U.K.， a Twitter account called the Viral Archive has been tagged in more than 2，000 individual posts of photographs of the Covid-19 landscape around the world. Similar to the Library of Congress initiative， the project has collected a massive range of familiar pandemic sights， though this one — led by a group of archaeologists — has a special focus on 「signs， marks and graffiti」 left on built and natural environments. It's important because the social-distancing stickers， hand sanitizer pumps， and wishing walls will disappear one day， leaving behind only photographs for future study， said Rosie Everett， a Ph.D student in archeology at the University of Warwick who helps lead the archive effort.
若在平時，未來的歷史學家可能真的不會在乎你哪天早餐吃了什麼，或者上班路上看到什麼。但情況在2020年發生了變化，同樣發生變化的還有記錄的本能。在一場幾乎影響到地球上每個人和生活各個方面的大流行病期間，普通人被賦予了世界歷史重要性，這催生了一大批檔案項目，這些項目旨在記錄普通人是如何度過這史無前例的一年的。
至少四個大洲的大學、圖書館和地方志專家正帶頭開展許許多多這樣的記憶保存工作。其中一些由受人尊崇的機構負責，其他則是更零散的私人行為。前者包括位於華盛頓哥倫比亞特區的國會圖書館，自去年9月以來，它已經從圖片分享網站Flickr的用戶那裡徵集了1700多張關於美國新冠疫情經歷的照片。
事實上，國會圖書館一直在做這樣的工作。20世紀三四十年代，美國農場安全局資助了一個攝影檔案，它僱用了多羅西婭·蘭格和沃克·埃文斯等現今具有代表性的攝影師，深深影響了議員和公眾對農村貧窮困境的認識。它收集了大量圖片和文件，展示了尋常美國人是如何度過無數改變世界的事件的，其中包括1918年的流感大流行，那是最近的一次與當前疫情規模相當的公共衛生危機。最近收錄的照片包括以記錄城市變化著稱的攝影師卡米洛·J·貝爾加拉的新作，這些作品描繪了紐約市除曼哈頓以外的行政區因為口罩和隨風鼓起的帳篷檢測點而改變的面目。
但與那場西班牙流感不同的是，新冠肺炎對人類的襲擊發生在一個自我意識超強的時代。藉助智慧型手機、5G和用戶生成的數字媒體，數以百萬計的人能夠了解這是一次何等重大的事件，並且擁有記錄它的工具。因此，州立鮑爾大學歷史學教授詹姆斯·康諾利說，這場冠狀病毒危機很可能會在歷史記錄中留下不同以往的印記。
康諾利說：「1918年流感大流行最值得注意的一點是，事後沒什麼人談論它。追溯到20世紀20年代，它不是那個時期的焦點。我認為新冠肺炎不會這樣——人們正以許許多多方式將它記錄下來，尤其是有辦法記錄自己經歷的、受過良好教育的中產階級。我認為這些記憶會非常深刻。」
這場大流行病還正在以可能具有永久性的方式為景觀留下有形印記。在英國，一個名為「病毒檔案」的推特帳號在2000多條發布世界各地新冠疫情景觀照片的個人帖子中被添加為標籤。與國會圖書館的計劃類似，該項目收集了大量為人們所熟悉的疫情景象，不過這個由一群考古學家牽頭的項目特別關注建築和自然環境中留下的「標誌、記號和塗鴉」。協助領導這項檔案嘗試工作的沃裡克大學考古學博士研究生羅茜·埃弗裡特說，這個項目非常重要，因為提醒人們保持社交距離的貼紙、洗手液泵和許願牆有朝一日會消失，只留下照片供未來研究所用。（李莎譯自1月1日彭博新聞社網站）