Our multimodal and multilingual collective diary of imagination, “Imaginarios de cuarentena,” has become a place for us to share our feelings and desires, with ourselves and with others. The diary has since developed into a larger project called “Errant Imaginaries: Possible Utopias,” which unites the diary with an inquiry into existing inspiring models and practices of change.
As artists, activists, grassroots organisers, mothers, scholars, educators, and citizens, we are all working for a better world in many different ways. For almost three years, the network Mujeres Errantes has been a space where we have supported each other in this mission. Via our collective diary, we are able to focus on the dreams that fuel our desire for change.
As part of the “Errant Imaginaries: Possible Utopias” project, we are contacting other collectives that inspire us and that work on some of the desires and challenges that the collective diary expresses. Through an online encounter that we will record on video, we will create an occasion for sharing their experiences and dialogue through art. In the summer, we will hold in-person and hybrid arts residencies, drawing on a shared methodology and in collaboration with other women’s groups.
PRIYA — India’s first female superhero, embarks on a mission to stop the spread of Covid-19 in the comic book “Priya’s Mask.” She befriends a little girl named Meena to show her the sacrifices made by frontline healthcare workers and instill the power of courage and compassion during this difficult time. Along with her tiger Sahas, Priya explains the importance of wearing a mask and working together to help end the pandemic around the world. She teams up with Pakistan’s female superhero, Burka Avenger, to foil her arch enemy from infecting her city with the potent virus. Released as an online comic book, the edition reached millions of people in India and the worldwide.
The short animated film, “Priya’s Mask” is an important testament to the courage of women healthcare workers and will help educate people about the virus. An international array of actors and leaders lend their voices to this important film including Vidya Balan, Mrunal Thakur, Sairah Kabir and Rosanna Arquette.
Additional Details
This first story was specifically constructed to address the problem of blaming victims of sexual violence and provided a character, Priya, who could inspire change throughout communities by appealing to audiences — especially youth — with an empathetic narrative. Priya’s story became a powerful voice a in the global movement for women’s rights and a symbol of solidarity against gender-based violence and continuing with the #MeToo movement. The creators of the comic book were honored by UN Women as “gender equality champions.”
The Coronavirus Anagramme Stories, Five Imaginary Coronavirus Artworks
Brian Reffin smith
Over a period of five days, I wrote five short stories with a constraint: the title of each must be an anagramme of the word ‘Coronavirus’.
Over the following five days, I described, as if an art critic, five imaginary artworks by five imaginary artists (each of whose names is an anagramme of my own) in five imaginary shows in five imaginary galleries, ranging from multi-media to interactive installations, with the virus at their centre. Images of or coming from the work were also constructed.
Translations: Chains of Positive Energy (c.o.p.e.)
Tova Speter, Maya Bernstein, Emily Bhargava, and Maria Beatriz Arvelo
Translations: chains of positive energy (c.o.p.e.) was launched in April 2020 in direct response to the isolating effects of the Covid-19 crisis. After experiencing the powerful connections created by participating in chains of art as part of a physical art exhibit), I started this project to help others connect as well. We may be socially distancing, but we can still be connected. Participants are invited to sign up to be a part of a chain of art where they can receive work created by someone else and then create work in response in order to then inspire someone else in the chain. Each chain in Translations: chains of positive energy (c.o.p.e.) was started by someone offering a word/phrase/quote that describes a quality or mindset they have that allows them to move forward through these challenging times. The word was then sent to another artist to “translate” into their own modality. Once complete, that new artwork was sent to a different artist to translate into a different modality, and on and on, with each artist ONLY seeing the one translation immediately prior to their own. The seven links in the completed chain are a nod to the seven days in each week that feel so long right now.
An event exploring questions that have arisen during the co-created ASU Humanities Lab “ArtScience: COVID Responsen (link is external)” and over the past year in considering and experimenting with how to respond to COVID. Selecting from questions posed to or by students during the Lab, as well as those that remain unanswered –or perhaps unasked– we will discuss the challenges of how we determine truth and trust; how we identify or anticipate implications for policy, education, and creative collaboration; in what ways art and science address what is known and unknown. How does COVID require taking creative leaps in science and art, how can we “toggle between rigor and wonder”, and where can we find hope and healing pathways while responding to a health crisis we are still experiencing. Dr. Hartwell, Nobel Prize Winner, Center Director and Professor of the Biodesign Pathfinder Center Website: https://biodesign.asu.edu/leland-hartwell Dr. Hartwell led a research team at the Department of Genetics, University of Washington using cell biology and genetics to investigate how yeast cells divide from 1968 to 1997. They discovered two cellular pathways that are integrated by an overall control point regulating cell division and a signaling pathway that arrests cell division in response to DNA damage. Dr. Hartwell is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and he received the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Other honors include the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Award in cancer research, and the Genetics Society Medal of Honor. Diana Ayton-Shenker, CEO of Leonardo/ISAST (International Society of Arts, Science, Technology) Website: https://leonardo.asu.edu/content/diana-ayton-shenker Diana Ayton-Shenker, is an award-winning social entrepreneur who connects and convenes key partnerships, resources and capital for positive global impact. She serves as the Executive Director of Leonardo’s partnership with ASU, where she is Professor of Practice jointly appointed with the School for the Future of Innovation in Society (SFIS), and the Herberger Institute of Design & Arts’ School for Arts, Media, & Engineering. Diana is also founding CEO of Global Momenta(link is external), philanthropic strategy and social innovation firm, and the Global Catalyst Senior Fellow at The New School, where she recently collaborated with XReality Center and her partner-husband, artist William T. Ayton, to produced New Babel(link is external), the largest A.R. (Augmented Reality) public art installation of its kind (Union Square, NYC).
Additional Details
Held on 23rd March 2021 at 15:30pm Arizona Time / MST.
The Plague Nerdalogues is a video series curated by podcast host and television writer-producer Marc Bernardin, which features a roster of actors who’ve worked in the nerd space doing something they’re all intimately familiar with: self-taping monologues. These monologues are from beloved geek films and TV shows. The monologues were viewable only after making a donation, first to No Kid Hungry, then to Black Lives Matter.
Additional Details
The Plague Nerdalogues began in May 2020 as a way for actors of all stripes to flex their geek muscles during a specific moment in time: The two-pronged assault on the status quo by the coronavirus and the uprising against systemic racism. Those performances — nerd actors doing monologues from beloved nerd media — were used to raise money, first for No Kid Hungry, then for Black Lives Matter.
The intent was always to make these monologues available to the public, free of charge, after a certain amount of time … and so we are.
Yoko Ono Inspired Scores (In the time of COVID-19)
Jennifer Karson
After an introduction to the work of Yoko Ono through examples from her book “Grapefruit” and watching the film “Above Us Only Sky” students (receiving our class teachings through remote learning and quarantined in their homes) created unique written scores and then engaged their communities of friends and family to act out the scores written by their peers in the class. Sometimes they distributed the scores to their roommates and sometimes they did it over Microsoft Teams to distant friends and family. Participants included grandparents, parents, siblings and roommates – many who had previously little exposure to the work of Ono or this strain of contemporary art.
Beginning January through mid-March 2020, global quarantine measures were taken in response to the spread of the novel Coronavirus around the world. This is perhaps the only time in recorded history when nearly all nations around the world took some form of collective action for the protection of human kind. The global response creates a unique kind of opportunity to ask a unique question: how does the intersection of culture, politics, and rhetoric reveals itself as words when every country agrees on the nature of the problem?
Around the world, speeches were delivered by national leaders addressing how daily life and laws would suddenly need to change. These viral word clouds came from those first speeches. To date, I have created wordclouds from 17 official English transcripts. I was motivated to ask how how one speech might have influenced another over time, as more knowledge about virus was became known? How are national values reflected in the words of their leaders? Which words best express a cooperative relationship between humans and the natural (viral) world? Which ones express concerns for one another? Ecology? Society? Mutual aid? Collaboration? In light of new scientific discoveries about Sociovirology – the secret social life of viruses. What are the ways their social behavior might influence our own?
This micro-course aims to help teachers deal with the suspension of classes due to measures against the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
ART AND SCIENCES TOGETHER
We believe in a learning model based on the student’s active role, in contextualized knowledge, in the promotion of curiosity and in the constant integration between Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM).
Translations: Chains of Positive Energy (c.o.p.e.)
Tova Speter
Translations: chains of positive energy (c.o.p.e.) was launched in April 2020 in direct response to the isolating effects of the Covid-19 crisis. After experiencing the powerful connections created by participating in chains of art as part of a physical art exhibit), I started this project to help others connect as well. We may be socially distancing, but we can still be connected. Participants are invited to sign up to be a part of a chain of art where they can receive work created by someone else and then create work in response in order to then inspire someone else in the chain. Each chain in Translations: chains of positive energy (c.o.p.e.) was started by someone offering a word/phrase/quote that describes a quality or mindset they have that allows them to move forward through these challenging times. The word was then sent to another artist to “translate” into their own modality. Once complete, that new artwork was sent to a different artist to translate into a different modality, and on and on, with each artist ONLY seeing the one translation immediately prior to their own. The seven links in the completed chain are a nod to the seven days in each week that feel so long right now.
We are developing a virtual exchange for our summer writing program for high school students, creating digital learning courses on creative writing and disabilities and creative writing and dance, and exploring ways to bring together our pedagogical interests and public health. We have just published a range of reactions from IWP alumni to The Situation, as we call the pandemic, which can be found here:
The CAPE Network Forum is a place where our artists, teachers, program staff, and researchers share their inquiries, ideas, reflections, and video instructions in response to the pandemic and school closures.
In these days of quarantine, when a touch is a wave from six masked feet away, we turn again to language, to the essence of language, to the art of language, to poetry.
The “Poetry Is Like Bread” Ghazal is a collaborative poem created by a world of poets to nourish us all through the Pandemic and to envision the world After. We take our inspiration from Pablo Neruda: “On our earth, before writing was invented, before the printing press was invented, poetry flourished. That is why we know that poetry is like bread, it should be shared by all, by scholars and by peasants, by all our vast , incredible, extraordinary family of humanity.” This collaborative poem was created with the idea that each poet’s unique voice would join together as one, and that the result would be shared by all. There is no poetic form better suited to do this than the Ghazal.
“POETRY IS LIKE BREAD” GHAZAL.
If, as Neruda thought, poetry is like bread, Then let it leaven this dark time and be my bread. [ Christopher Merrill ]
Struggling (and losing) in this Antipoem, ghosted thread, Spreading cool butter, sweet jam on homemade toasted bread. [ Bob Holman ]
No one waits to forgive the dead don’t pardon the dirt, nor the psalm palms, this celebration of bread [ Mahogany L. Browne ]
Distracted by detonating deadlines and demonstrations, I couldn’t meet your request for peaceful bread. [ Sandra Cisneros ]
Humanizing Epidemiology: Non-medical Investigations into Epi/Pandemic Phenomena
Nature
Since the current global outbreak has emerged, most of the prestigious scientific publishers including ours (Springer Nature) have raised open-calls and free material in order to fight COVID-19. all these efforts logically are addressed to the medical societies and related disciplines. However, we are convinced that the contributions of academics, policymakers and other stakeholders from other areas, including the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS), should not be overlooked. Therefore, I am pleased to announce this open call for research article collection that aims to examine the innovative role and contributions of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences -HASS- disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary efforts, in shaping the global response to public health crises. To this end, this collection intends to bring together a range of perspectives, empirical and theoretical, qualitative and quantitative, which draw on methods and approaches from, among other areas: cultural studies, new-media arts, history, digital humanities, law, media and communication studies, political sciences, psychology, sociology, social policy, science and technology studies. Further, Interdisciplinary perspectives are welcomed, whether between HASS disciplines, or at the interface between HASS scholarship and the physical and clinical sciences, or engineering, mathematics, computer science.
Additional Details
Prospective authors should submit a 200-word abstract and a short biography to the Collection Editors in the first instance. Authors whose proposals are deemed suitable will be invited to submit full papers at any point up until the end of June 2021.
Guest Editor: Diaa Ahmed Mohamed Ahmedien (Faculty of Art Education, Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt)
Co-Guest Editor: Michael Ochsner (ETH, Zurich, Switzerland)
Advisory board: Jon Hovi (University of Oslo, Norway), Adele Langlois (University of Lincoln, UK), Tony Waters (California State University, Chicago, USA), Merryn McKinnon (Australian National University, Australia), Chisomo Kalinga (University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK), Ann H Kelly (King’s College London, UK), Jochen Buechel (Charite Berlin, Germany), Lin Wang (University of Cambridge, UK), Shinichi Egawa (Tohoku University, Japan).
Pandemic outbreaks as public health crises have the potential to reshape human life, from herpes, and Legionnaires’ disease to HIV and Ebola. Each virus or bacteria has its unique biological properties by which it interacts with and affects populations. Human coronaviruses, for instance, have been known since the 1960s. In the past two decades, however, several new dangerous human coronaviruses have emerged, namely, SARS-CoV in 2002, MERS-CoV in 2012, and currently, SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of the disease known as COVID-19, which has put global public health institutions on high alert. Each pandemic brings its own political, economic, cultural, social and ethical challenges. Although efforts to combat such outbreaks are primarily driven by clinical and medical professionals, the contributions of academics, policymakers and other stakeholders from other arenas, including the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS), should not be overlooked.
Against this backdrop, this research collection aims to examine the role and contributions of the HASS disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary efforts, in shaping the global response to public health crises. To this end, this collection intends to bring together a range of perspectives, empirical and theoretical, qualitative and quantitative, which draw on methods and approaches from, among other areas: cultural studies, new-media arts, history, digital humanities, law, media and communication studies, political sciences, psychology, sociology, social policy, science and technology studies.
I am doing two narrative responses. First is Vintage Card Tiny Stories. Being isolated and alone, I decided that mail was a way to give a unique narrative experience and for me to connect in a meaningful way to a reader. I found a bag of vintage postcards and I write a unique short micro story and mail it off to an audience of one. This unique story for an individual is akin to a message in a bottle both for myself and for the reader. The other project is the Exquisite Birth, which I have instigated as a collaborative narrative game based on the surrealist Exquisite Corpse game. Only this story goes from End to Start. I’ve recruited novelists and comics creators to contribute a paragraph or art panel to the story game. It’s a way of connecting creatively with colleagues in a time when we are flung apart. Collaboration and conversation are key to artistic nourishment.
How Artists Are Trying to Solve the World’s Problems
New York times
A cohort of 30 artists have received funding to find creative solutions to 21st-century problems like surveillance, digital inequality and inherited trauma.
Starting on 24th March 2020, I started writing a daily public diary logging the first 100 days of lockdown in Stirchley, Birmingham, UK. Guest posts have also become a regular feature offering different perspectives and experiences. The diary is an important part of my writing practice and rather than keep it in a private diary, I decided to write more publicly as a matter of social/historical record. The digital artefacts also included photos, video, collaged artworks and a walk map.
Our goal is to identify specific domains of pandemic preparedness and response that benefit from an applied medical humanities approach, and produce detailed descriptions of the forms of output that result from this engagement. Applied Medical Humanities for Public Health will identify, synthesize, and translate humanities-based responses to COVID-19 from around the world so that these projects may together provide a blueprint for education and research on pandemic preparedness and response in humanities disciplines.
Kirsten Ostherr (reported by Inside Higher Education)
In times of crisis, when we face complex challenges like global pandemics, we need a collaborative response that transcends disciplinary boundaries and offers novel approaches to vexing problems. In the current moment, biologists, engineers and others in fields with established pipelines for translational research have sprung into action, working together to create life-saving diagnostics and therapeutics to help with the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet it isn’t always so obvious how scholars in the humanities can contribute to the front-line response.
Additional Details
Kirsten Ostherr, PhD, MPH is the Gladys Louise Fox Professor of English at Rice University in Houston, Texas, where she is a media scholar, health researcher, and technology analyst. Her research on trust and privacy in digital health ecosystems has been featured in Slate, The Washington Post, Big Data & Society, and Catalyst. She has recently published research on medical humanities and artificial intelligence in The Journal of Medical Humanities, and her writing on COVID-19 has been featured in Inside Higher Ed and in American Literature. She is currently leading a multidisciplinary project called “Translational Humanities for Public Health” that will identify humanities-based (and humanities-inspired) responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, to document and help others build upon these creative efforts. Kirsten is the author of Medical Visions: Producing the Patient through Film, Television and Imaging Technologies (Oxford, 2013) and Cinematic Prophylaxis: Globalization and Contagion in the Discourse of World Health (Duke, 2005). She is editor of Applied Media Studies (Routledge, 2018), and co-editor of Science/Animation, a special issue of the journal Discourse (2016). Kirsten is currently writing a book called Quantified Health: Learning from Patient Stories in the Age of Big Data.
Laura Spinney: What Does The 1918 Flu Teach Us About Our Response To Pandemics?
NPR / Ted radio hour
A century after the 1918 flu, we see similar patterns in the ways we’ve responded to COVID-19. Laura Spinney reflects on the Spanish flu and how societies learn to move forward after pandemics.
Additional Details
Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of several books. Her latest non-fiction title isPale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World. In the book, Spinney examines the enduring effects of this pandemic flu and society’s response—how they altered global politics, race relations, family structures, and thinking across medicine, religion, and the arts.
As a journalist, Spinney has written for National Geographic, The Economist, The Atlantic, Nature, and New Scientist, among other publications. She holds a BS in Natural Sciences from Durham University in the United Kingdom.
