Memories from the CEISMIC team

We were talking about memories in the CEISMIC office this week, and the ways that our memories of an event like the 4 September 2010 earthquake are subtly changed as the years go by.   Already, only four years on, how many of our memories are truly our own, and how many have been filtered by repeatedly viewing the event through the eyes of the media, or even through the material in our own archive?  What will we remember in 10 years' time, or 20, or 50?

In response to our discussion, a few of us created DigitalNZ sets that represent our memories of that day.

Rosalee was a student in 2010, and says her biggest concern was not being able to get on campus to study.  She spent time over the next two weeks volunteering, part of the Student Volunteer Army.

Jennifer says that because her suburb wasn't badly affected, some of her strongest memories of the earthquake are of watching the news reports on television, and especially of John Campbell reporting from the Manchester/Worcester Street corner.

Alex wasn't living in Christchurch in 2010, but with her interest in history she's created a set comparing historic photographs of iconic Christchurch buildings with photographs showing the damage they sustained in the earthquakes.