From Fear to Resilience: Storytelling of COVID-19 in Southeast Asia. 2020 Call for Photo, Short Video and Art Essays by SEA Junction and Partners
These days we are inundated with photos of deaths, ICUs and suffering, creating fear as an incentive to keep us all at home. No matter how well-meaning, this narrative of COVID-19 remains one-sided and may have many unwanted consequences. We know from the HIV epidemic that fear only changes behavior in the short term and it may cause traumas and prejudices that make it more difficult to learn to live with the virus. This narrative also leads to seeing the ‘other’ as the ‘enemy’ who can potentially infect us, triggering unnecessary stigma and discrimination that hampers the efforts to control the epidemic. More needs to be done to raise understanding of the rationale of preventive measures and to provide the social and economic means to enable people to apply those.
SEA Junction invites all to make an effort to collectively provide a different visual story of the epidemic in Southeast Asia that shows strength and hope. We believe in the importance of reducing fear and promote informed policy and public discussion with more accurate reporting of the epidemiological realities of COVID19. We need to show that COVID19 is also a tale of survival, resilience and solidarity.
We are asking for short stories in the form of photo essays, short documentaries and illustrated art essays in any language of the region (to be later translated into English) or in English. We will then select, curate and showcase them in a special section to be established on our online platform and on our social media. We will be also looking for other partners interested in broadcasting these works of resilience. When the Covid-19 situation ease, we will use the selected visual storytelling works to organize a 2-week long exhibition at BACC.
Possible topics could be:
- cultural rituals and faith to counter our anxiety;
- experiences of quarantine (at home or at reserved locations) and survival;
- people that continue to work in essential services;
- laborers and migrant workers that keep the economy running by continuing to work in construction, agriculture, fishing, etc.;
- rural and urban community organizing to control the epidemic and provide support to the needy;
- innovation and adaptation of technology in resource poor settings;
- strategic intervention to enhance people survival beyond relief;
- and people that fight for social protection and for upholding of privacy and other human rights amidst this epidemic.
Needless to say, ethical and safety principles need to be respected in the production of the stories, and compliance of preventive measures is a must at any time.
If you have a series or an idea just contact us at southeastasiajunction@gmail.com or with our instagram/twitter/fb messanger
Looking forward to shaping this initiative with all of you!
