Dear Partners and Friends of SEA Junction
As you may know, SEA Junction has been closed since 21 March and we are waiting for 1 June to see if the government’s measures to curb the Covid-19 will allow our host institution, the Bangkok Arts and Culture Center or BACC to function. As a result, all planned activities such as workshops, movie screenings and panel discussions have been postponed until further notice.
This does not imply that we have been idle. Traffic on our social media has increased significantly as we share well-evidenced information on the crisis and on other urgent issues for Southeast Asia. We try to give space to often ignored dimensions of the pandemic as well as aiming to highlight the solidarity that has emerged in our midst. More and more people and organizations also use our platform to communicate to a wider audience.
As you can read in more details below, we have also launched a special initiative “From Fear to Resilience: Visual Storytelling of COVID-19 in Southeast Asia” to engage the public in sharing tales of strength and humanity and promote an alternative narrative of the pandemic.
We are aware that with this crisis there are many needs and we all are already contributing to support various efforts. Still, if you can, please consider supporting SEA Junction as our operating costs remain the same, while our resources are shrinking due to reduced activities and cancellation of two promised grants due to the donors’ repositioning to fund COVID-19 activities. To donate is easy, just click the box below and it will bring to our designated website page where you can transfer electronically with PayPal. If you prefer to transfer via bank our dedicated account for our Foundation for Southeast Asia Studies is TMB #043 -7-18114-2. For those in the US, you can get tax benefits by donating via Partners Asia, a United States 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, at https://partnersasia.org/donate/, but please do not forget to mention that it is for SEA Junction. No matter the amount you give it will help us overcome this challenging time and reconfigure our activities in a way that conforms with the times.
Please continue to follow us and keep safe!
Best regards,
Lia Sciortino Sumaryono
Founder and Executive Director SEA Junction
From Fear to Resilience:
Visual Storytelling of COVID-19 in Southeast Asia
27 April – 31 December 2020
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.
This initiative has been launched by SEA Junction in partnership with Beyond Food, the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW) and Bangkok Tribune and we welcome other interesting parties to join this call.
If you have a series or an idea or want to contribute to this initiative just contact us at southeastasiajunction@gmail.com or with our instagram, twitter or facebook.
For the first visual storytelling, please scroll below. As of now, we have received 6 photo and art stories from Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines and we will share in the days ahead.
Looking forward to shaping this initiative with all of you!
Spiritual Shield Against COVID-19 in Bali
by Garrett Kam, Gusti Putu Sudharta and Ni Komang Sutini
The Balinese live with daily rituals based in animism, ancestral worship, and Hindu-Buddhist religion and there are special ceremonies and rituals for any life-event including for when natural disasters disrupt daily routine. The current corona virus pandemic is no exception.
See further: http://seajunction.org/spiritual-shield-against-covid-19-in-bali/
For information/reservation for our events
please email southeastasiajunction@gmail.com
phone/wa: +66970024140
About SEA Junction, OUR Venue on Southeast Asia
SEA Junction, established under the Thai non-profit organization Foundation for Southeast Asia Studies (ForSEA), aims to foster understanding and appreciation of Southeast Asia in all its socio-cultural dimensions- from arts and lifestyles to economy and development. Conveniently located at Room 408 of the Bangkok Arts and Culture Center or BACC (across MBK, BTS National Stadium), SEA Junction facilitates public access to knowledge resources and exchanges among students, practitioners and Southeast Asia lovers. For more information see www.seajunction.org, join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1693055870976440/?source_id=470374673153248 and follow us on twitter and Instagram @seajunction.
