The National Museum of Bermuda (NMB) has launched a community crowd sourcing project: Bermuda Family Scrapbook—Your Pictures, Your Stories, Our History. NMB invites everyone living in Bermuda – and anyone abroad who has previously lived in Bermuda or has a relative who has lived in Bermuda – to submit their historic family photographs and associated stories to the project. The images and stories submitted will become part of the NMB permanent collections and will also form digital and in-person exhibits at the Museum, launching later this year and in early 2023.
Posed, candid, professional or amateur family photographs are all welcome. Your stories and memories can highlight the history of the people who are in the photograph and the historical events that might have touched their lives.
“History is a tapestry comprised of millions of individual stories and Bermuda Family Scrapbook offers us an opportunity to uncover the many threads that make up our Island’s diverse history. The more stories that are shared, the more vibrant and vivid our picture of Bermuda’s history becomes and the better we understand ourselves and each other. The NMB Curatorial team is so excited to learn more about Bermuda’s past through the individual and family stories shared by our community.”
– NMB Curator Dr. Deborah Atwood
NMB Executive Director Elena Strong shared: “With this project, we want to capture images and stories of everyday people who may have been excluded from the historic record. History is more than a collection of dates, events and famous people – it is about the lived experience of people like all of us. I encourage everyone to submit a family photograph so we can build a better picture of everyone who calls or has called Bermuda home.
The Bermuda Family Scrapbook is an extension of the Museum’s ongoing community education programme Tracing Our Roots/Routes (TORR). TORR uses family history as an entry point to promote community participation in curating local history while leveraging technology, contemporary art and partnerships. Developed in collaboration with local and international partners, TORR provides tools, tips and strategies to research and document family history. The Bermuda Family Scrapbook expands on this by providing a platform to share and preserve personal and family images and stories, adding multiple perspectives to historical narratives and providing us all with a better understanding of our history.
