Our Scrapbook: Generating Hope
It’s impossible to deny the toll that COVID-19 has taken on the world, and on our generation. The past year has been one of loss and tragedy, one after another, seemingly without end. Acknowledging the overwhelming toll of COVID-19 on our lives, our group decided to focus not on tragedy, but rather on the role of hope in the face of so much pain. The pandemic forced us, as young people, to create new ways of coming together and finding resiliency. Without a ghtness. Through this project, we hope to chronicle the imaginations and joys that our generation found and created during this overwhelming time in history.
To begin chronicling modes of generating hope, we split our project into four subthemes that emerged as particularly important for young people during the pandemic. First, we focus on Going Home, and what it meant for many of us to return to living in our childhood homes again. Next comes The Self, an exploration of how time alone allowed us to reimagine and
understand ourselves and our identities in deeper ways. Our third subtheme is Gaming and Digital Trends, which explores the role of online media and virtual connection during the pandemic. Lastly, in acknowledgement of the great tolls of this pandemic, we focus on Loss. However, we explore this concept through the lens of hope, and include stories of loss to emphasize our generation’s resiliency in the face of so much pain.
Our final product takes the form of a scrapbook, which our group compiled by hand. Scrapbooks encapsulate a sense of nostalgia, intimacy, and accessibility that was essential to the mission of our project. We want our contribution to the time capsule to show future generations that our generation is colorful, scrappy, and thrives on connection. The process of creating a scrapbook perfectly mirrors these ideas. Just as depositing the time capsule will serve as a ritualistic experience of leaving this pandemic in the past, creating this scrapbook was itself an act of generating hope and coming together in community. We hope you enjoy, and please take a look at the photos of our book coming together!
