As much as it may not seem like it, while we live each day history is being written. The things printed in newspapers, spoken on podcasts and the radio, and accumulated during our contemporary period will one day be the texts, sources, and historical objects future generations will use to know us by. However, few people probably give a second thought to the pamphlets, junk mail, adverts, and other small items which pass through their lives and into the bin.

Occasionally, the thought might appear when holding a Biro, a disposable coffee cup, or a piece of interesting packaging of collecting these items – but then the mental image of a hoard of this stuff accumulating, uncurated, rises before you – and so into the bin it goes.

Despite this, some museums are engaged in ‘contemporary collecting’, seeking to acquire (within reason) elements representative of our current situation. What separates their collecting from hoarding, is that they define the boundaries of what they will and won’t collect, and how much of it they need. Additionally, samples are ‘representative’ rather than exhaustive.

Mr Bowden’s Museum is also engaged lightly with contemporary collecting.

As explained in our About the Collections page, our Contemporary Department seeks to acquire ephemera and present-day material. We are currently engaged in collecting from a selection of areas, based on what we can reasonably store along with what we can reasonably access.

For example, we collect election pamphlets, How to Vote Cards, voting information, and candidate promotional material handed out at the polling station and posted to electors, for South Australian state elections as well as for South Australian electorates in Commonwealth elections. Our coverage is limited to the districts our curators live in, but we collect as much as is practicable.

During the 2020-2023 Covid-19 Pandemic, we collected as much as possible: photographs of temporary installations (such as barriers and signage at shops), stickers, pamphlets, guides, newspaper clippings, and other physical material. Additionally, we collected a significant number of digital artefacts: videos, advertisements, promotional posts, screenshots, and more, from websites, Facebook, news sites, and YouTube. These items were likely to disappear fairly quickly, so we moved fast to capture what we could across the duration of the Pandemic. This collection will require a significant amount of curation to bring it into a sense of order.

Owing to copyright concerns, at this time it is unlikely objects and advertising collected will be displayed on our Collections portal. However, some original photographs might be - so watch this space!