An ambitious “national memory” project designed to record how Covid-19 is affecting Wales’s people and communities is being created to help future generations make sense of the crisis. Citizens are being asked by the country’s national museum to share their feelings and experiences of lockdown. This includes their highs, lows, fears and sense of loss but also, perhaps, moments of joy and the sense of communities coming together. People are also being asked to identify objects, such as comforting blankets or items of PPE, that have become important to them during the crisis. David Anderson, the director general of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, said: “As Wales’s national museum, we have a responsibility to create a memory and record of the pandemic in Wales – a story of now, recorded as the lived experiences of everyone in Wales. This is an unprecedented time and one that we must record for future generations.” People are being invited to share their experiences by responding to a digital questionnaire on the museum’s website or via its social media channels. It hopes individuals, communities and organisations across Wales will contribute. Amgueddfa Cymru will build a network of “community collectors” to gather oral histories and create an online gallery of images and responses from the questionnaires. Participants will be asked to identify objects from their homes and communities that represent their experiences of lockdown. As restrictions ease, the museum will contact volunteers to collect and document the objects. It is not the first time such a project has been carried out in Wales. At another time of crisis, the depression in the 1930s, the museum sent more than 500 questionnaires to volunteers, communities, organisations and schools across Wales to try to capture the lives of ordinary people across the country. The archive at St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff contains almost 800 completed questionnaires. Researchers will examine whether there are parallels between the two eras. Sioned Hughes, the head of public history at St Fagans in Cardiff, said: “We feel we have a duty to record the lives and experiences of as many people as possible in Wales. We have a rich history of recording the everyday experiences of people.” Hughes said the project would be informed by the philosophy of the poet, scholar and founder of St Fagans, Iorwerth Peate, who advocated for museums to collect contemporary culture and history. He wrote: “It is not enough … to show and preserve the things that have been; it is necessary to trace their organic continuity with the things that are and the things that shall be.” Hughes said the project was not a one off. The plan is to revisit participants over the coming years and measure the impact of the coronavirus crisis. She said parallels with the 1930s may emerge, such as an economic crisis and perhaps a period of protest and change. The project will be launched on Friday 15 May. People can take part by visiting the www.museum.wales website, where they can complete the questionnaire online or download it and fill it out by hand. They will also be able to upload images and film.