@03AR.CHIVES

I became aware of the Instagram account @03ar.chives a few years ago whilst wasting a few hours of my life away on Instagram stories. I wasn’t looking for anything of significance, rather to mindlessly absorb the repetitive imagery of influencers impossibly clean houses, breakfasts at trendy new cafes I’ll never get a seat at, and friends’ new dogs being raised like human children.

A childhood friend had shared the photo from the profile @03ar.chives, an account dedicated to sharing incredibly specific images of Ōtautahi city pre-earthquake. 

The photo was of the old Christchurch Bus Exchange, a building I hadn’t seen since 2009. I was suddenly back there, feeling that immense social anxiety one would experience whilst walking down the stairwell to the main exchange while students from every school in the city stared from those chairs that awkwardly faced you. I instantly started following the account. Scrolling through their digital archives was like scrolling back to my teenage years. Image after image transported me to an incredibly specific hang out spot: The alley of food carts in The Arts Centre, the food court at The Crossing that I never actually ate at, Hack. It was deeply nostalgic in a way I wasn’t emotionally prepared for, certainly not while scrolling Instagram on the toilet. It’s then I realised what I was missing most, a Christchurch institution, home to my greatest memories as a teenager and the birthplace of my love for caffeine – Java Café. I immediately messaged the mysterious owner of the account, “Not sure if you do requests, but I would trade my soul to see a photo of Java Café”. They replied, “There’s one coming, but it was taken on a Nokia 2280. It’s absolute rubbish”. I couldn’t believe my luck. Later that day, it was up. 

There it all was in all its tie-dye beauty, including those horrendous spiral staircases that led up to the mezzanine that I couldn’t stand up on. I yearned for a large bowl of wedges and a mochaccino. I wanted to be back there, sitting next to my girlfriend (yes, that’s right), talking about Rocky Horror Picture Show, and planning how we were going to get drunk in the weekend. There’s nothing revolutionary in being nostalgic for your teenage years. We’ve all been guilty of blasting some My Chemical Romance and dancing till we have ‘the stitch’ while alone in the house. But I think there’s a certain level of nostalgia that only millennials from Ōtautahi understand – to be nostalgic for a city that held your adolescence which was then almost entirely erased. I’m so grateful for you @03ar.chives. Whoever you are, you deserve a key to the city or at least a free annual pass for the tram.