Social Practices COVID-19 Teaching Resources

WDKA Links

 WDKA Staff and Students Update

 WDKA COVID-19 Central Information Point (In Dutch Only)

 MYWDKA Distance Education 

 Etherpad hosted on Piet Zwart Institute Experimental Publishing server

They aren't any less private that regular etherpads on riseup or whatever, but they are hosted on an internal WdKA/PZI server. So in case you want to be strict-ish about HR regulations that we use only "official" HR software, this pad may be a workaround. Do not post private or sensitive information on these pads (student emails, phone numbers, etc...). They are not private, and also GDPR.

 Education on a distance - Learning technologies from HR

 Research for People Who Would Rather Create

Manifestos and Charters and the like

Foundational documents, demand-lobbying, organizational guidelines

 REPORT LOSS OF INCOME DUE TO CORONA HERE

In doing so, you contribute to the mapping of loss of income amongst artists and culture workers. With this information, Platform BK, Kunstenbond and Kunsten ’92 can lobby for an apt cluster of crisis measures for the arts.
Filling out the survey costs approximately 10 minutes. The survey is anonymous and entirely in English.

Survey results: https://www.platformbk.nl/en/results-of-the-survey-on-living-and-studio-space-in-times-of-corona/

 DCW (Design and Cultural Workers Union). Open Letter: COVID-19 Statement from Designers + Cultural Workers

Dear members and supporters,

We stand in solidarity with all workers in these troubling times.

We know that most of our members are freelance self-employed workers, who work (often temporarily) in multiple workplaces and for different clients. We are very concerned about the impact that the crisis is going to have on these workers and the sector in general.

Now, more than ever, we need solidarity. If you’re not already part of the union, now is the time to join. Unions are the front line defence in preventing worsening scenarios for workers.

A collective response is the only way out of a collective crisis. Together we can organise, support one another and make demands of our employers and our government.

We demand that employers, studio providers and clients:

1. Facilitate the transition to remote working, as soon as possible
2. Implementing a rent freeze across all studio spaces
3. Ensure full salary sick pay for those not able to work because of COVID-19

 UVW response and demands of bosses and government

An open letter.
UVW (United Voices of the World) is a members-led, campaigning trade union which supports and empowers the most vulnerable groups of precarious, low-paid and predominantly migrant workers in the UK. Founded in 2014, rapidly gaining media attention and popular support with a series of high-profile victories for workers at Sotheby's, Harrods, and the London School of Economics

From employers we demand:

• That no members of UVW, including any agency workers on long term placement, suffer any financial detriment through any reduction or loss of work regardless of contract type, length of service or visa status, resulting from COVID-19 be it due to self isolation, advised or voluntary, or business closure or downturn.
• That any period of absence due to illness related to COVID-19 will not trigger the company’s Sickness Absence Policy.
• That all workers are offered a permanent Occupational Sick Pay moving forward scheme which guarantees full pay from day one of any absence due to illness or injury.
• That any redundancy consultation processes planned or currently underway are shelved.
• That UVW is consulted in advance of any proposed changes, including closures or reductions in workloads or working numbers as a consequence of COVID-19.
• That risk assessments be carried out with the involvement of all staff to determine what can be reduced, delayed or ceased entirely in order to minimise the risk of contraction of COVID-19.
• That any disciplinary hearings that do not relate to physical or psychological discrimination or harassment be postponed. And that grievance or appeal hearings be postponed indefinitely if requested by the worker.
• That any workers who are able to work remotely are offered the opportunity to do so.
• That all workers are offered free counselling services to protect their mental well being in light of the likely psychological distress caused by COVID-19.
• That hot desking is ended in order to minimise the risk of transmission of COVID-19.
• That workers are allowed to vary their working hours to reduce risk of infection on congested public transport.
• That any worker who raises concerns about COVID-19 or refuses to undertake certain duties or outright refuses to work for fear of either contracting or transmitting COVI-19 will suffer no detriment or dismissal as provided for under section 7 of the Health and Safety At Work Act 1974 (HSAWA 1974) and Section 44 and 100 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996).
• That Clients who currently outsource any facilities services such as cleaning, security, catering or portering terminate their contracts with their private contractors and hire those workers directly as employees of the organisations or companies where they work.

From the government we demand:

• Temporarily suspend all mortgage, rent and bill payments both in residential lodgings and in commercial studios for freelance artists.
• End all evictions for private renters, housing association and council tenants, with all current proceedings frozen and no new ones brought forth, including all current section 21 or section 8 evictions and applications for such evictions. Further, that any period of time spent in self isolation or ill with Coronavirus will be disregarded in section 8 hearings and not counted in the ‘over 2 months of arrears’ threshold.
• Ensure the equivalent of school meals are provided for children if/when the schools are closed.
• Ensure elderly and vulnerable populations in self-isolation are provided with care packages including food and medications, access to medical advice and online or phone companionship
• Ensure all workers, including self employed contractors, whose employers or clients cease to pay their wages are provided with an emergency “Pandemic Payment” equivalent to a rate of at least the London Living Wage or the National Living Wage for workers outside of London at equivalent hours to those normally worked.

 Dutch ZZP-er Manifesto 

Freelancer Manifesto:Cultural Workers Shouldn't Pay for the COVID-19 Pandemic in NL.

This is an anonymous open letter meant to address Dutch cultural organisations, institutions of education and research, and government bodies.

Its goal is to raise concerns regarding freelance and remote work during the COVID-19 emergency.

Feel free to circulate, appropriate and adapt this text.

 Cancel everything, pay everyone

This is an open letter directed to gallery owners, curators, editors and directors, It's aim is to highlight concerns of precarious freelance work and how financial security will be impacted by cancellation of cultural events.

<<Go ahead, cancel everything, do what you have to do for the sake of everyone's health, but pay everyone at once.
Your budget was already approved, and who knows, you've most certainly just saved thousands on canceled shipment, printing and champagne.

So now, pay security guards,
pay artists,
pay stage managers,
pay speakers,
pay educators,
pay graphic designers,
pay editors,
pay cleaning staff,
pay dancers,
pay ushers and invigilators,
pay actors,
pay technicians,
pay writers,
pay musicians,
pay art handlers,
pay translators.

Pay everyone.>>

 #StayTheFuckHome. A Movement to Stop the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Self-Quarantine Manifesto

1. Don't panic, but be alert.
2. Wash your hands often and practice good cough and sneeze etiquette.
3. Try to touch your face as little as possible, including your mouth, nose, and eyes.
4. Practice social distancing, no hugs and kisses, no handshakes, no high fives. If you must, use safer alternatives.
5. Do not attend concerts, stage plays, sporting events, or any other mass entertainment events.
6. Refrain from visiting museums, exhibitions, movie theaters, night clubs, and other entertainment venues.
7. Stay away from social gatherings and events, like club meetings, religious services, and private parties.
8. Reduce your amount of travel to a minimum. Don't travel long distances if not absolutely necessary.
9. Do not use public transportation if not absolutely necessary.
10. If you can work from home, work from home. Urge your employer to allow remote work if needed.
11. Replace as many social interactions as possible with remote alternatives like phone calls or video chat.
12. Do not leave your home if not absolutely necessary.

 Cross-Border Feminist Manifesto: Emerging from the Pandemic Together 

We will not go back to normality, because normality was the problem: the global feminist and trans-feminist movement, confronted with this new global health, economic, food, and ecological crisis, will not surrender to isolation and will not silence its struggles in the face of the restrictive measures undertaken in our territories to deal with the coronavirus.

We call on everyone who rejects the patriarchal, exploitative, colonial, and racist violence to mobilize and join together to enrich and strengthen the global feminist struggle, because if we unite we can not only emerge from the pandemic, but we can change everything.

Source: https://spectrejournal.com/cross-border-feminist-manifesto/

CROSS BORDER FEMINISTS
ALAMES (Ecuador); Associació stop violències (Andorra); Bibi Ni una menos – Soriano (Uruguay); Cabildo de mujeres (Ecuador); Creando Juntas (Ecuador); Collecti.e.f 8 maars (Belgium); Coordinadora Feminista 8M (Chile); Democracia Socialista (Argentina); Desmadres (Uruguay); Disidentes Violetas (Ecuador); Feministas Autónomas (Bolivia); Feministas con voz de maíz (Mexico); Feministas en Holanda (Holland); Grupos Regionales de la Red para una Huelga Feminista en Alemania (Stuttgart, Berlin, Augsburg, Frankfurt/Main, “Gemeinsam kämpfen”, Leipzig); International Women’s Strike (United States) Luna Creciente (Ecuador); Minervas (Uruguay); Movimiento de Mujeres de Kurdistán en America Latina (Kurdistán); Nina Warmi (Ecuador); Ni Una Menos (Argentina); Non Una Di Meno (Italy); Opinión Socialista (Argentina); Parlamento Plurinacional de Mujeres y Feministas (Ecuador); Radical Women/Mujeres Radicals (Australia & United States); Red de feminismo populares y desde abajo (Uruguay); Revista Amazonas (Ecuador); Toutes en Grève (Francia); Unidad Latina en Acción (United States); International Group for Feminist Strike #14June (Switzerland).

 [Do we need manifesto/charter/guidelines/whateveruwannacall?]
At least for Social Practices (SP)? Something to see with the group that logs on next week.

So far, compiled this list of priorities from diff ppl/groups, feel free to add priorities of your department or your personal conviction-type stuff

• XPUB

- priority on physical and mental care/health and solidarity - honouring agreements with freelancers in one way or another - adapting the curriculum/schedule to match everyone's constraints and suddenly more complicated daily activities (both of staff and students) - planning should be very flexible, things will change on a weekly/daily basis for the coming month - slowing down is a good thing

• Others

+ do not create more dependencies on software, esp. tech with a steep learning curve and/or companies with dubious, extractive practices + in a crisis situation... ...communicate clearly and precisely and often (but not all the time) ...ego conflicts are a liability ...explore solidarity and generous collaboration ---allow people to organize independently, adapting "official" guidelines to their own needs ...archiving, interpretation of information and resources is vital +give us time to figure this out... in HK, for mass closure of schools due to protests+coronavirus, they gave 2 weeks for self-directed online learning and then 2 week recess for teachers to re-design their lesson plans... online learning environments are not built overnight... also, people may have other pressing concerns at the moment such as taking care of family members, trying to make rent without freelance work/horeca or retail jobs/etc...

*just because people are home, doesn't mean they have the same ability to concentrate From a meeting: NO BUSINESS AS USUAL. Demand recess. This is not a design-thinking, how do we solve 'wicked problems' scenario.

• Teaching-Design.net

Include challenges in your briefs, let students contribute to solving such problems as most of them (problems) can inherently fit into a design project. Educators work for such precarious academic institutions that asking them to come up with urgent, mind-blowing, optimal and UNPAID solutions is not only unfair but highly counter-productive. We should not reproduce precarity.

Please do not tackle this as a design project. Your task here is to train students to find their own solutions. It is not a test for your own design skills. Keep the ego aside and be kind to yourselves.

Mental and physical health, anxiety and isolation

 Death Research

• Death in a time of Corona

A collaborative map and account of changing death culture during the COVID-19 pandemic

Author: Hannah Harewood Gould
Source: https://padlet.com/hannahgould/deathduringcorona

• Virtual Memorial Guide

This free do-it-yourself guide will help you spend less time trying to figure it all out and more time honoring your loved ones. It is based on interviews with others who have lost friends and family members during Covid and the online memorials they have created. We designed this to be useful for everyone, regardless of your comfort with technology, your budget, or your prior experience hosting events.

Source: https://www.virtualmemorialguide.org/

• THIS TOO SHALL PASS

Mourning collective loss in the time of Covid-19

An essay on collective grieving.

Authors: Alex Evans, Casper ter Kuile and Ivor Williams, The Collective Psychology Project
Source: https://www.collectivepsychology.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/This-Too-Shall-Pass.pdf

 COVID-19 CT Dataset

The COVID-19-CT-Dataset has CT images containing clinical findings of COVID-19. The community can contribute COVID-19 CT scans

Source: https://github.com/UCSD-AI4H/COVID-CT

 COVID-19 Chest X-ray Dataset

Researchers at DarwinAI and the University of Waterloo are building a dataset of COVID-19 X-rays to train AI models for COVID-19 detection (COVID-Net) and COVID-19 risk stratification (COVID-RiskNet).

If you would like to contribute COVID-19 x-ray images, please submit them here: 🔗https://figure1.typeform.com/to/lLrHwv

Source: https://github.com/agchung/Figure1-COVID-chestxray-dataset COVID-19

 Pandemic Dreams

a collection of vivid COVID-19-related dreams with advice for practical exercises to control stress and anxiety while asleep.

Author: Deirdre Barrett
Source: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/07/09/coronavirus-dreams-nightmares

 Worldwide covid-19 is causing a new form of collective trauma

Mental-health professionals say that no single event since the second world war has left so many people in so many places traumatised at once. How people fare in the months and years ahead will depend partly on how their countries—and, more importantly, their communities—respond.

Source: https://www.economist.com/international/2020/08/29/worldwide-covid-19-is-causing-a-new-form-of-collective-trauma

 We have begun the dreaded third quarter of isolation, when — yes — things get weird

In studies of people isolated in submarines, space stations or polar bunkers, researchers have found there appears to be an inflection point where the frustration and hardship of being cooped up inside gets suddenly harder to bear.

Author: James Purtill
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/coronavirus-covid19-isolation-third-quarter-phenomenon-has-begun/12190270

 The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence

Key messages

• Information is key; people who are quarantined need to understand the situation
• Effective and rapid communication is essential
• Supplies (both general and medical) need to be provided
• The quarantine period should be short and the duration should not be changed unless in extreme circumstances
• Most of the adverse effects come from the imposition of a restriction of liberty; voluntary quarantine is associated with less distress and fewer long-term complications
• Public health officials should emphasise the altruistic choice of self-isolating

Authors: Samantha K Brooks, PhD, Rebecca K Webster, PhD, Louise E Smith, PhD, Lisa Woodland, MSc, Prof Simon Wessely, FMedSci, Prof Neil Greenberg, FRCPsych, Gideon James Rubin, PhD
Source: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30460-8/fulltext

 COVID-19 & Your Mental Health: A Comprehensive Resource Guide

This resource was pulled together by a counselling practice who specialize in tools and self-knowledge in overcoming anxiety and depression. They are based in Vancouver, BC.

Mental health is just as important as physical health when it comes to responding to COVID-19.

• Recognize that fear and uncertainty are normal and these feelings make sense
• Continue to remember that ‘panic sells and calm saves’
• Focus on taking small, concrete steps every day to prepare and educate yourself.
• Recognize what is in your control (hand-washing) and what is out of your control (quarantine measures) and try to focus on what you have control over
• Set boundaries with friends or family by telling them what you can currently take on
• Try practicing mindfulness and being in the present moment.
• Access virtual mental health care services
• Shop local and support small businesses
• Look out for each other and keep connected!

Source: https://peak-resilience.com/

 Mental Health And COVID-19 – Information And Resources

From Mental Health America. Has extensive list of resources. US centric. But there's one Spanish language entry in the advice for parents section

 self-care share pod for times of isolation

 RESOURCES TO STAY PHYSICALLY AND MENTAL HEALTHY DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

THIS IS OPEN SOURCE. Since I started it lots of people have added excellent links and suggestions! Please feel free to share widely and post on any website you think would be helpful. No need to credit me.

In 2018 I developed a severe anxiety and panic disorder and since learning to manage it have taken an interest in academic body-mind health. I manage my disorder through multiple means- including medication- but daily physical exercise is one of my key coping mechanisms. So, when we got the shelter-in-place order, and realized we were going to be spending an unknown amount of time trapped at home, I started to put together a list for myself of ways to get that exercise and keep my anxiety manageable. I realized quickly that there were tons of options, and decided to expand it into a resource for my students with wellness links. While it certainly doesn’t replace practitioner-led therapy, I hoped that it might help with anxiety, stress, and isolation that many are facing or will face in these unpredictable, frightening times.

Author: Katie Strom
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xuOFtTlby9sdkM6VIJ6yHe8df2BHo1w8idSezFxjRjw/edit?usp=sharing

 I Spent a Year in Space, and I Have Tips on Isolation to Share

Take it from someone who couldn’t: Go outside.

Author: Scott Kelly
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/opinion/scott-kelly-coronavirus-isolation.html/

 Coping with being housebound 

The advice in this zine is for people who are currently housebound due to the coronavirus quarantines. The advice is based on what I’ve learned from over a year housebound suffering from M.E., and previous sporadic bouts of houseboundness due to depression and agoraphobia. These are some ways of coping that have improved how I deal with that, based on managing your behaviour and mental health.

This is not going to make houseboundness painless for you but it might help you cope.

Depression
Time
Day-Night Cycle
Vitamin D
Cooking and a sense achievement
Set yourself a permissive routine
Keep your places separate

This zine is based on a thread in mastodon posted by @alex@godforsaken.website.
Source: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19FIHY-Dm2WFHC0wg9hlUgvt4yn0jAKS3/edit

Education-Based Resources

Comprehensive lists, shared docs, (collectively written) resources from/for pedagogues

 6 Quick Ways to Be More Inclusive in a Virtual Classroom

Universal Design for Learning
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

"Lead an exercise asking students to help set classroom values. Create a Padlet (an online visual Post-it board with limitless uses in teaching), and ask students to post words and images that represent what’s important to them in a classroom. Students might come up with things like respecting all perspectives, creating and maintaining a safe space for all, engaging in civil discourse, using person-centered language, etc. You can refine their ideas into a list or leave them gloriously unstructured on Padlet. Revisit these co-constructed values throughout the term, asking how well the class is doing in upholding them. You can try an anonymous survey or poll, a classwide discussion, or both, for different purposes."

Author: Flower Darby
Source: https://www.chronicle.com/article/6-quick-ways-to-be-more-inclusive-in-a-virtual-classroom

 5 ways to protect your Zoom meetings from hackers

1. Disable Guest Screen Sharing
2. Require the Host to be Present
3. Keep Your Personal Meeting ID Private
4. Use a Password
5. Use The Waiting Room

 A Philosophical Coping Manual for Academy Students in Quarantine

Artist Ksenia Galiaeva teaches at the Willem de Kooning Academy. For her students, she has written a philosophical (coping) manual about the working process in times of isolation. In order to encourage the artist, she published the text below on Mister Motley on May the 2nd

Author: Ksenia Galiaeva
Source: https://www.wdka.nl/stories/academy-student-in-quarantine-a-philosophical-manual

 Transcript: Yan Lianke, What Happens After Coronavirus?

Elaine W Ho writes: Also this most beautiful and moving e-lecture from a professor at HKUST, to be moved to tears via wi-fi... On February 21, Yan Lianke, IAS Sin Wai Kin professor of Chinese Culture and chair professor at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, gave an e-lecture to his class of graduate students on coronavirus, community memory, and how storytellers will one day address the outbreak. Below is a translation of that lecture, published first in ThinkChina and translated by Grace Chong.

My dear students, we’re all arts students who will probably spend our lifetime dealing with reality and memories through language. Let us not talk about collective memories, national memories, or memories of our ethnicity, but our own; for in history, national and collective memories always shroud and change our own memories. Today, at this present moment, when Covid-19 is still far from being a memory yet, we can already hear victory songs and loud triumphant cries from all around us. Because of this, I hope that each of you, and all of us who’ve experienced the catastrophic Covid-19 will become people who remember; people who derive memories from memory.

Source: https://lithub.com/yan-lianke-what-happens-after-coronavirus

 A Reminder of Who is Hurt by Insisting that Students Share Images of their Personal Lives

Students and colleagues alike must be able to say “no” to digital meetings that require outsiders entering the private space of their homes for the reason alone that they do not wish to have guests in those spaces. That’s sufficient.

But there are more specific reasons, too, why a person is endangered if you demand that they show participate in a digital meeting.

Like, for example:

They are abused
They have fled an abuser
They live with people who are undocumented
They live with children who they do not want to appear online
They live with children who are in foster care
They live with people who are engaged in illicit activities
They live in poverty
They lack privacy
They may lack the ability to maintain a tidy environment
Their only private space is where they sleep
Their only private space includes evidence of information they may not wish to share with others

Author: Rebecca Barrett-Fox
Source: https://anygoodthing.com/2020/04/06/a-reminder-of-who-is-hurt-by-insisting-that-students-share-images-of-their-personal-lives

 Please, Professors: Stop Pretending the Dying Isn’t Happening

If you’re teaching young people right now, you need to think about that thing that none of us wants to think about: people dying from the coronavirus.

What if someone we love has died, or is in the ICU, and all we want to do is be distracted?
Answer: do not teach.

Author: Dr. Lyra D. Monteiro
Source: https://medium.com/@intersectionist/please-professors-stop-pretending-the-dying-isnt-happening-cb17096f9c5e

 COVID-19: A Feminist Killjoy’s Rant On Toxic Productivity In The Academy

We are witnessing an unprecedented global pandemic that has an overwhelming impact on how we see our future selves; where we see our future selves and whether we will be able to accept us the way we emerge out of this catastrophe. We have to survive first and then continue with our projects. The killjoy inside me snaps me out every time I feel guilty of not being able to concentrate, or hiding my face behind the ‘stop video’ feature in zoom!

1. Allowing yourself to rest and not do anything for few days and to modify the ‘normal’ in your life in response to the current situations.
2. Reminding yourself that all the emotions that you are navigating are valid and the leakage is normal.
3. Drawing a difference between toxic productivity and creativity.
4. Be kind to yourself and take pride in being a killjoy if you defy the structural norms that wounds your mind.
5. Add to the permission notes as long as it helps you cope.

Author: Deeplina Banerjee
Source: https://feminisminindia.com/2020/04/07/covid-19-feminist-killjoys-toxic-productivity-academy

 Academia in the Time of Covid-19: Our Chance to Develop an Ethics of Care

Embrace an ethics of care
Prioritize importance over urgency
Weigh the role and values of online teaching
Adjust research goals
Rethink academia after Covid-19

Disclaimer

The views expressed above are the authors’ own, who are grateful to Ana Cañizares for insightful edits.

Source: http://www.bcnuej.org/2020/03/31/academia-in-the-time-of-covid-19-our-chance-to-develop-an-ethics-of-care/

 Feminist Pedagogy in a Time of Coronavirus Pandemic

Things to Consider as You Move Your Teaching Online

1. Uneven resources always exist, but the move online makes this structural inequality more obvious.
   
2. A variety of needs for privacy should always be accommodated in learning communities.
   
3. An online class is not the same thing as a class with physical persons gathered to learn together in a brick and mortar classroom in real time and physical space.
   
4. You don’t have a “flipped classroom.” You no longer have a classroom at all!
   
5. Reject calls to highlight prestige, peer institutions, and imitation of star systems on other campuses and instead explore what is needed and best about where you work and then also foster connections across difference.
   
6. Embrace DIY peer-to-peer improvised faculty and student connections.
   
7. Reject the push and rush to “learn” the technology; do this in your own way; admit that you are learning as you go.
   
8. The supposedly “born digital” generation needs just as much help as others.
   
9. Your online course is not simply about imparting information in one direction.
   
10. Consider what co-presence means in any learning situation and how we relate to each other newly through screens and with various technologies.
    
11. Consider how international students can be supported in a time of widespread anti-Asian racism.
    
12. Consider how to recognize and thank everyone who is participating in the class.
    
13. Online experiences can be unsafe.
    
14. Differences around race, class, nationality, gender, sexuality, and ability don’t disappear in online environments. Online experience is as racist and sexist and homophobic as anywhere else.
    
15. Feminists have been thinking about digital learning since its inception.
    
    

Source: http://femtechnet.org/

 Teaching Design

• Collectively gathered bibliography & conversational formats focusing on design education from intersectional feminist & decolonial perspectives.
• Ideas for online teaching and learning design
• (⇨ online bibliography) An in-progress + collaborative project
• design as in: graphic, industrial, product, communication, media, visual, video, fashion, textile, web, interface, UX, animation, game, typeface …

Quite useful. And joyfully colourful

Source: http://www.teaching-design.net

  RESOURCES FOR ONLINE INSTRUCTION of VISUAL/STUDIO ARTS

This document is open for editing and sharing. Please give CREDIT to sources and content creators. THANKS + stay safe!

bit.ly/33i3xAa <- short link to this document

 Teaching Effectively During Times of Disruption

Stanford University guide to teaching in times of COVID-19. Looks like they are subscribed to Google online VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) by the tools that they recommend using. Interesting section on synchronous vs asynchronous teaching. Extensive Zoom tutorial.

 Italy's Ministero dell'Istruzione (Ministry of Education) official guide to teaching at a distance. 

 CHALLENGES & SOLUTIONS FOR HAVING TO ABRUPTLY TEACH ONLINE

Author: Jaap Grolleman
Source: Personal Blog

 Teaching Art Online under COVID-19

 ArtEZ Arnhem: Emergency Online Readiness for Students

 University of Hong Kong  Teaching and Learning Arrangement

 corona virus syllabus

A crowdsourced cross-disciplinary resource. Containing articles, books, syllabi, podcasts, visual arts, music and literature references.

 Distance-Learning Tips for Gallatin Arts Workshops: Getting Started

Authors: Teachers at Arts Faculty, NYU Gallatin
Source: Crowdsourced Google Doc

SOME WORKING QUESTIONS:

Engage with the circumstances of the moment. What does it mean to teach art-making in the 21st century? What are the students noticing about institutional response to crisis?

Industry response?

What can this moment teach about the world we live in and the fields we work in?

How might these online formats stimulate ways to think about environments, space, and time? For example: what might be ways to “build environments for the screen” or think about the bounded screen as a kind of theatrical space?

How might students collaborate in this new space? For example: working in pairs or groups to create projects that are shared and built upon remotely?

Amazing Educational Resources 

Education Companies Offering Free Subscriptions due to School Closings (Updated)

 How to turn an offline course into an online one

Quick suggestions, self-explanatory, by a sociology teacher

 How to hide your messy room for a Zoom video conference

Author: Barbara Krasnoff
Source: The Verge</small

 Remote Teaching Resources for Business Continuity
Resources for Online Meetings, Classes, and Eventshttps

by Facilitators for Pandemic Response group and other collaborators

 ACCESSIBLE TEACHING IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

All of the below suggestions come from disability culture and community. Disabled people have been using online spaces to teach, organize, and disseminate knowledge since the internet was invented.

Disabled people are leading survival praxis in apocalyptic times.

Commit to accessible teaching because it is crip technoscience and disabled ingenuity that has made remote participation possible.

CHECKING IN ABOUT NEW ACCESSIBILITY NEEDS
Check in with your students about their access needs around online material.

CHECK IN ABOUT INTERNET ACCESS AND TECH AVAILABILITY
Ask about internet connection availability and available technology.

CHECK IN ABOUT WELL-BEING AND BASIC NEEDS
As your students if they are having trouble accessing housing, food, water, health care, mental health care, or other necessary resources.

CONDUCT A SYLLABUS HACK-A-THON OR DESIGN CHARRETTE
Ask students to collaborate in small groups (accessed digitally) to participate in hacking and tinkering with the educational process. Use the opportunity for course redesign to teach them valuable lessons related to your topic.

BUILD SOLIDARITY, MUTUAL AID, AND FEELINGS OF CONNECTION
Build in elements of pleasure and connection to counteract social isolation. Begin class by asking how everyone is doing. Encourage them to check in on each other.

Author: Aimi Hamraie
Source: https://www.mapping-access.com

 Design Education Resources and Considerations for dealing with COVID-19 (AIGA)

 Digital Cultures Resource Person Community List

This is a list of resource persons in digital cultures who want to help peers deal with this transition.

 Carnegie Mellon Assignment/Team Prompts

1. Design an experience for people interested in working out and getting more physically fit but can't pay another subscription fee.
   
   
2. Design an experience for those who live with roommates and want an easier way to fairly manage the responsibilities and finances.
   
   
3. Design an experience for people who work remotely (from home, the local coffee shop, or shared spaces) and are still looking for social & professional connections without using a paid workspace (i.e. WeWork).
   
   
4. Design an experience for people who don't cook and aren't foodies, but due to health reasons, are interested and motivated to find ways to eat healthier without spending a lot of money.
   
   
5. Design an experience people who live in a different time zone as their families and want to be able to stay in touch without feeling so distant.
   
   
6. Design an experience for those who want to listen to podcasts and audiobooks in a socially-connected way.

 Distand Elephant, A letter from Constant to everyone facing on-line teaching. 

"Dear student, teacher, worker in an educational institution,
Together we witnessed how the recent move to ‘distant learning’ has meant that educational institutions have almost without exception turned to online commercial platforms. What we called ‘an elephant in the room’ only a few months ago, has finally trampled all residual ‘room’ in education.(...)

This happened partially due to the state of emergency related to the pandemic, but mostly because decisions made on the level of IT are usually far removed from the practice of teaching and learning.(...)

A few years ago, your institution confided its networked communication, some of your digital archives and your collaboration tools to tech giants. It started with outsourcing services perceived as not central to education (such as email and internal communication) to Google, Microsoft and Facebook. Contracts were signed with private partners to provide ‘Learning management systems’ such as Blackboard, meaning that the way classes, rosters and exam results are organised, stored and communicated is not anymore in the hands of your institution.(...)"

Community-Based Resources

Comprehensive lists, shared docs, (collectively written) resources from/for community organizers

 Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

Two aspects of animal life impressed me most during the journeys which I made in my youth in Eastern Siberia and Northern Manchuria. One of them was the extreme severity of the struggle for existence which most species of animals have to carry on against an inclement Nature; the enormous destruction of life which periodically results from natural agencies; and the consequent paucity of life over the vast territory which fell under my observation. And the other was, that even in those few spots where animal life teemed in abundance, I failed to find — although I was eagerly looking for it — that bitter struggle for the means of existence, among animals belonging to the same species, which was considered by most Darwinists (though not always by Darwin himself) as the dominant characteristic of struggle for life, and the main factor of evolution.

Author: Pëtr Kropotkin
Source: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution

 Catalogue for Local Mutual Aid Communities Worldwide

This sheet is a collection for local mutual-aid communities worldwide during COVID-19. Please feel free to add new information.

If you need any help, feel free to contact epu-jsv1@protonmail.com - El pueblo unido jamás será vencido -

Source (short link): https://rb.gy/zahbmw

 Black Patients' Guide to Covid-19

Author: Dr. Ruth Arumala, in partnership with color of change
Source: https://theblackresponse.org/

 All We Have is Each Other- A Guide to Making Fabric Masks

this zine is pieced together with lots of love and commitment for our collective wellbeing. we hope you are all reminded that in times of crisis, community in many ways have always shown up for one another. our hope is that these tools and whats comes with your creation are shared/ distributed with those around you.

we want to acknowledge and center Disabled folks, ImmunoSuppressed/ ImmunoCompromised folks, Sick/Ill folks, Spoonies, Neurodivergent folks, Mad folks, Deaf/Hard of Hearing folks, Crip/Krip folks, Blind folks, Black folks, Indigenous folks, People of Color, Queer folks, Trans folks, Nonbinary folks, Elders, Youth, Undocumented folks, Incarcerated folks, Unhoused folks, Displaced folks, Sex Workers, Autonomists, Creators, Vendors, Giggers, Artists, First Responders (this includes but not limited to people especially in our Pods/ Circles, people outside of just performing wage labor professionalism), and so many more of us who hold our praxis in collective care.

Authors: Yessi (they/them), an undocumented queer femme in Los Angeles.<br. N (they/them), a neurodivergent immunosuppressed QNB on Tongva Territories.
Source: https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Printable-Booklet-Creating-Fabric-Masks.pdf

 Asian American Feminist Antibodies - Care in the Time of Coronavirus

With the COVID-19 pandemic neither behind us or solely ahead of us, this zine offers a way to make meaning of the coronavirus crisis through long-standing practices of care that come out of Asian American histories and politics. We bring together first-hand accounts and analyses from our communities, including health and service workers and caregivers on the frontlines, students, people living with chronic illness, journalists, and organizers. Together, this collection of stories, essays, and artwork shows how we experience, resist, and grapple with a viral outbreak that has been racialized as Asian, is spoken of in the language of contagion and invasion, and reveals the places where our collective social safety net is particularly threadbare.

Authors: Salonee Bhaman, Rachel Kuo, Matilda Sabal. Vivian Shaw, Tiffany Diane Tso
Source (short link): https://rb.gy/n01ksd

 DIY Emergency Washing Station

We offer this ‘zine in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic I the Spring of 2020. Our unsheltered relatives cannot simply “stay home if they are sick’ and “constantly wash their hands” as instructed by callous politicians who, predictably, had no plans to ensure the wellbeing of our relatives.

We’ve assembled this DIY emergency hand washing station as a way to support our relatives on the streets. Please replicate and improve these plans and ask unsheltered folx where they would be most useful to them. Let’s take care of each other. Capitalism is pandemic. Colonialism is a plague.

Most supplies listed can be donated, scavenged, or liberated.

Author: compiled by Indigenous Action
Source: www.indigenousaction.org

 La Rebelión en Cuarenta

Una Guía Anarquista de Acción en Tiempos de Pandemia. An anarchist's guide to action in pandemic times.

Source: https://www.lainstruccionintegral.org/
Author: Jorge Enkis

 Immune & Respiratory Herbs

A Resource for Tribal Communities During COVID-19

The knowledge and information included in this resource is not protected, and is intended to be shared. 
Please share with your community. This information is not intended to diagnose or prescribe

Authors: Elise Krohn, Valerie Segrest, Renee Davis, Rhonda Grantham, and Sofie Geist
Source (short link): https://rb.gy/8ffggx

 How to Organize a Rent Strike

 Useful Mutual-Aid Projects in Response to COVID-19: Experiences from Chinese Volunteers

Dear Friends, Over these months, we have received so much help from the other parts of the world, and we sincerely appreciated the generosity that has been offered to us. We have grown and have been learning a lot from this crisis. We are all connected, we have all been there before, and we absolutely understand your fear and your suffering at this moment… Therefore we would like to share with you some of the lessons we have learned. We share the world. We shall meet in a place where there is no darkness anymore.'' 3/30/2020

This document is credited to Chinese Volunteers in general. If you find it helpful, we suggest you share this link, since there might be follow-up updates in the near future. However, you are welcome to copy/share this document in any way with the intention of helping communities come together and support each other.

Source (short link): https://rb.gy/2oxlul

How To Make A Slack Neighborhood Hub During COVID-19

Form Letter: A Neighborly Invitation Regarding Coronavirus

** Thank you for your interest! I have been very touched by the many people who are circulating a version of this document to their communities. IMPORTANT NOTE: You do not need to have editorial access. Simply download the document, save it to your computer, and modify it to suit your needs! **

Strategic tools or supports for a creative community

This is a list of community organizations that steward a space, maintain revolutionary desires, generate participation in their local neighborhood, use resources collectively and generously, and have interesting internal structures of support within the organization. Each of them use art as a strategic tool or supports a creative community.

Source: https://pad.riseup.net/p/Community_Organizations_(ungovernable)-keep</small

 Care Is Our Best Weapon against COVID-19

A growing directory of autonomous and self-organized mutual aid groups and resources related to the coronavirus, updated daily.

Mutual aid entails what’s often called “solidarity not charity.” It isn’t a handout from some top-down entity, nor someone’s paid employment. It embodies a spirit of empathy, generosity, and dignity. When we engage in mutual aid, we are gifting each other the beginnings of a new world, premised on reciprocal, voluntaristic, and egalitarian social relations. We are collectively self-determining, self-organizing, and starting to self-govern how to supply each other with what we need as well as desire, all the while cultivating beloved communities of care.

Source: https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/resources/

 300 ‘How to Guides’ to Help You Share More in Your Community

Source: https://www.shareable.net/how-to-share/

 COVID Ready Communication Playbook

We’ve crowdsourced this playbook to provide some practical advice on how to talk about some difficult topics related to COVID-19. Building on our experience studying and teaching communication for two decades, we’ve drawn on our networks to crowdsource the challenges and match them with advice from some of the best clinicians we know.

If you know our work, you’ll recognize some familiar themes and also find new material.

 Coronavirus Tech Handbook

The Coronavirus Tech Handbook is a crowd-sourced library for technologists, civic organisations, public and private institutions, researchers, and specialists of all kinds working on responses to the pandemic. It is a rapidly evolving resource with thousands of expert contributors.

 COVID-19 Mutual Aid

This page will be updated as new projects and groups are announced. To have your group or mutual aid project listed, email us at: info [at] itsgoingdown [dot] org

Source: https://itsgoingdown.org/c19-mutual-aid

 Amid the coronavirus crisis, mutual aid networks erupt across the country

As the government response to the pandemic falters, mutual aid projects — a staple of social movements for decades — are rising up to meet people's basic needs.

Source: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/03/coronavirus-mutual-aid-networks-erupt-across-country

 Feminist Resources on the Pandemic

FEMINISM AND INTERSECTIONALITY
SEXISM
RACISM
MILITARISM AND SECURITISATION
CAPITALISM AND IMPERIALISM
CLASSISM
EMOTIONAL HEALTH
DISABILITY & ABLEISM

The response to Coronavirus is a feminist issue.
The response to the current pandemic is in dire need of feminist perspectives, especially as we are already seeing the gendered impact it is having.

We hope you find this page to be a useful resource in staying informed and making sure that during this time, we both protect the most vulnerable and ensure that governments’ responses to this pandemic don’t trigger a roll back on women’s and human rights. We will be continually updating this space with new resources. If you think we’ve missed something, drop us a line!

Source: https://centreforfeministforeignpolicy.org/feminist-resources-on-the-pandemic

 Surviving the Virus: An Anarchist Guide

1. Form an Affinity Group
2. Form a Network
3. How We Relate to Risk
4. Surviving the Crisis
5. Strategies of Resistance
6. Rent Strikes
7. Labor and Transit Strikes
8. Prison Revolts

Author: Crimethinc.com
Source (short link): https://rb.gy/p5ztoz

 Covid at Home 

Self-help site on COVID-19, based on reputable sources including the World Health Organization, Center of Disease Control (USA), Robert-Koch-Institut (Germany) and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (EU), initiated and co-maintained by (legendary Dutch hacker and XS4ALL founder) Rop Gonggrijp. Informs on basic facts on COVID-19, how to stay healthy, what to do when symptoms emerge and at various levels of disease, shopping list, how to get involved and help the project

Source: https://covid-at-home.info/

 Queer Relief Covid-19 Berlin - Offering Help 

This is the form for offering support to people who are immunocompromised, chronically ill, asthmatic or elderly. We also give relief to people in quarantine that need help. This is a queer community effort. Priority will be given to people on the LGBTQIA+. spectrum and other marginalized folx (i.e. BiPoC).

 COVID-19 Freelance Artist Resources

This list is specifically designed to serve freelance artists, and those interested in supporting the independent artist community. What this list IS: an aggregated list of FREE resources, opportunities, and financial relief options available to artists of all disciplines. What this list IS NOT: a place to promote individual artist practices (we love you, but we’re not equipped for that); a place to promote fee for service work; or a place to seek direct emergency funding.

Source: https://covid19freelanceartistresource.wordpress.com

 Mutual Aid for Survival 

Useful stuff from here: +++++ Article on pod-mapping strategy for mutual aid Pod Mapping is a tool for mutual aid developed by the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective. The mapping tool focuses on the notion of the 'pod' as a microcosm of community. (See section: Lectures, Workshops, Lessons, Activities, Ideas)

   +++++ Essay on Half Assed Disabled Prepper Tips for Preparing for a Coronavirus Quarantine

 (LIST) Collective Care Is Our Best Weapon against COVID-19

Authors: Text written by Cindy Milstein, resources compiled by Agency & CM. Link to Google Doc, which will be updated as we get information, is here. To add to this list, email anarchistagency@gmail.com. Overwhelmingly, in this extensive list of what communities all over are putting together, in terms of resource lists and guides, Google Docs and Facebook are used. All resources from US.

 COVID-19 Mutual Aid Resource Links (slight Los Angeles focus)

This is quite an extensive document that does devote a large section to Los Angeles-focused mutual aid resources. Many of the links found within this document are already listed in throughout this (study) pad. Much of the information and practices outlined in this document are from lessons gained from disability and transformative justice activists.

There are several practices / exercises listed below in the "Lectures, Workshops, Lessons" section.

BERLIN LOW-INCOME ARTIST+FREELANCER RELIEF FUND

Hi. We're a group of low-income/precariously employed artists+freelancers from the Berlin arts scene raising money to support other artists and freelancers like us who are taking financial hits as a result of closures and lost income from Covid-19. Our intention is to collectively raise funds to provide emergency and preventative resources to those at financial risk as the government is doing little to protect our well-being.Comparable campaigns:

NYC Low-Income Artist+Freelancer Relief Fund and PRECARIOUS WORKERS & ARTISTS HARDSHIP FUND in the UK

   Neighbors helping Neighbors: Request for Aid - Philly Mutual Aid for Folks affected by COVID-19

This is a form and service developed by volunteers in Philadelphia. It is for people in need of food or other supplies, or for picking up prescriptions or transporation assistance. The service prioritizes those who are the most vulnerable. There is a form that needs to be filled out to request services.

The important disclaimer: We are simply neighbors helping neighbors. The aid provided comes from community support and solidarity thus we cannot guarantee to meet each request but we will be trying our best to do so . We are not funded, we are not a government or medical agency, we are simply neighbors connecting neighbors to neighbors who can help (and we happen to be organizers)

 Decolonizing Community Care In Response To Covid-19 

1. SMUDGE AND STAY GROUNDED
2. CONNECT WITH TRADITIONAL MEDICINES AND KNOWLEDGE
3. BUILD COMMUNITY

Now more than ever it is imperative for us to decolonize from individualism and reconnect with ways of community care.

Author: Jade Begay

Source: https://ndncollective.org/indigenizing-and-decolonizing-community-care-in-response-to-covid-19/

 Autonomous Groups Are Mobilizing Mutual Aid Initiatives To Combat The Coronavirus

 Mutual Links from The World Transformed (TWT)

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Please check the address and try again.

 Beautiful Trouble!7 things to do instead of hoarding toilet paper 

1. Take leadership from the most impacted
Effective activism requires providing appropriate support to — and taking direction from — those who have the most at stake.

2. Make the invisible visible
Many injustices are invisible to the mainstream. When you bring these wrongs into full view, you change the game, making the need to take action palpable.

3. Simple rules can have grand results
Movements, viral campaigns and large-scale actions can’t be scripted from the top down. An invitation to participate and the right set of simple rules are often all the starter-structure you need.

4. An abundance of tactics
Whose streets? Empty streets!

5. Practice cultural disobedience
Civil disobedience is the deliberate violation of unjust laws. In a similar spirit, cultural disobedience bravely subverts dominant cultural norms.

6. Let’s be careful with each other, so we can be dangerous together.

7. Now is the time to build a solidarity economy.
A tradition of radical economic organizing that strives to replace dependence on exploitative economic relations with “solidarity chains” linking community-based alternatives.

Source: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/03/beautiful-trouble-guide-activism-coronavirus
Author: Rae Abileah and Nadine Bloch

 Leveler, peer to peer wealth distribution

The leveler is a tool for salaried workers to distribute wealth evenly across a database of freelancers, service industry and gig economy folks who are impacted by COVID-19 health and safety restrictions. You can joing the database if you are impacted by the situation, or you can donate/distribute if you are a salaried worker.

Source: https://www.leveler.info/

Concrete ideas for classroom activities

 COVID-19 & Society: Inequality in Global Pandemics

What does COVID-19 teach us about ourselves, and about the societies we live in? How can we take care of one another and the planet during this unknown pandemic time? In this innovative and timely course, learn how coronavirus impacted social inequalities, and what we can do about it.

This lecture series will challenge you to:

• Connect your local COVID-19 experiences to global trends
• Consider how ageism and racism are exacerbating the coronavirus
• Assess COVID-19 impacts on existing health inequalities
• Identify links between COVID-19 and climate change
  
  

Author: The COVID-19 lecture series is curated by Dr. Katherine Lyon, who offers a brief introduction to each topic and suggested literature for further reading. Lectures are pre-recorded so you can watch at your own pace.
Source: https://www.edx.org/course/covid-19-society

 THE PANDEMIC PROJECT

The Pandemic Project is a social psychology initiative that is studying how our everyday lives are affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

Expressive Writing Exercises
Some of the most common reactions to the COVID-19 outbreak are feelings of uncertainty and fear about social isolation, job loss, health, and other parts of life. Solid research evidence suggests that writing about emotional upheavals can reduce feelings of distress, improve sleep, and even boost mental and physical health. The expressive writing webpages provide a series of exercises that may help you think about, understand, and cope with some of the issues you may be living with.

Source: https://utpsyc.org/covid19/index.html

 CORONA DIARIES

Corona Diaries documents the pandemic through personal stories - big and small. It's an open source audio project meaning anyone can contribute their audio story, and anyone can use them.

We're currently looking for stories about the upcoming school year.

If you're a teacher, student, or parent, we want to hear your perspective. Looking toward the start of school, what are you hoping for? What do you fear?

Initiated by former fellows of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, the platform is intended for journalists, artists and creators of all types to then use to make into any media they choose under the Creative Commons licence. It is an open database of recordings forever growing and always accessible.

Source: https://coronadiaries.io/

 EXPLORING MASK-MAKING AS A CREATIVE RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC

"By now, the face mask has become a familiar presence in our lives, both as a protective device against COVID-19, and as a key symbol of our plague-ridden times. And yet, wearing a mask is an act that historically, and even now, makes a statement beyond safety, says artist and art curator Michael Magnussen.

To help us unmask the multiple meanings that can emerge from wearing a mask during COVID-19, Magnussen is leading the online exercise Personal Mask Making – A Prototyping Exercise. Taking place on July 20 from 12 to 1 p.m., this free public workshop focuses on using mask-making to explore our perspectives on the virus and its effect on our lives... In the workshop, he’ll guide participants through the process of using simple materials—paper, pencil, scissors, tape—to create a prototype of a personal mask. The process will involve reflecting through drawing and journaling, and using techniques such as beading and bedazzling to create a customized design."

Source: https://www.ocadu.ca/news/exploring-mask-making-creative-response-pandemic

 Mapping Our Roles in Social Change Ecosystems 

1. In our lives and as part of movements and organizations, many of us play different roles in pursuit of equity, shared liberation, inclusion, and justice. This framework and reflection guide are starting points to reflect on the roles we play in our social change ecosystem - whether that is a project team, an organization, a network, a neighborhood, an online community, a campus group or a movement.
   
   
2. The framework is incomplete because there are many more roles that people play to bring about social change than envisioned in the map. Feel free to be creative with the framework, keeping in mind that what is added should be about the roles you play, rather than job titles or functions. Similarly, the reflection guide is a launching pad to catalyze deeper self-awareness. It provides questions for individuals and organizations to locate and understand their own roles, identify the gaps and strengths in their ecosystems, and develop aspirations for the future.
   
   
3. Together, the map and reflection guide can be used at an individual level to reflect, assess, and plan, as well as at staff and board retreats, team-building meetings, orientations, and strategy sessions. Often, this exercise works well if it is used at the start of a gathering or workshop. It can especially be helpful to re-align ourselves when we feel lost, confused, and uncertain in order to bring our fullest selves to the causes and movements that matter to us.
   
   

Source: https://buildingmovement.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Reflection-Guide-for-Mapping-Roles-in-A-Social-Change-Ecosystem.pdf

 Ideas for long term projects

1. What would happen if, for a period of one year, a large number of artists (established and non-established) decided to change their ‘studio-hermit’ practices and object-based art productions for a non-object, non-material = more participatory, social/community-based practice?
   
   
2. To what extent is the art/cultural sector (funding bodies, institutions, foundations, curators, critics, artists, producers, etc.) preparing itself to operate in a future with resource scarcity: energy, materials, food or water? *I would like to see more funding opportunities dedicated to supporting new (and more sustainable) ways of creation, production and distribution of artworks, projects and events.
   
   
3. How realistic is it to keep creating/making/doing business as usual if there isn’t a solid/fair/sustainable structure/infrastructure in place that can sustain what we create/do? Shouldn’t we be putting all our energy/resources/time/effort to design/build/rebuild/demand stronger systems/infrastructures/frameworks? And I apply this reasoning to all sectors, including my own: Arts and Culture. I wonder if we should “pause” that impulse of creating objects and material stuff until we have a clearer idea of how we are going to continue living on this planet. Can we redirect all of that creativity towards something else? Maybe towards something that is more useful to our present communities/society?
   
   

Author: Carmen Salas
Source: https://medium.com/@CarmenSP/what-should-we-expect-from-art-in-the-next-few-years-decades-and-what-is-art-anyway-be9f75c3d1ae

 Corona Scenario Games  - An alternative to sipping the toxic hose of fear

directions:

1. Everyone say hello/ introductions

2. Scenes seen or seen scenes:
- everyone gets 2-3 minutes to describe what is going on around them or effecting them
- this means the scenes seen directly touching your life and imagination.
- fine to repeat from previous session

3. Choose two scenes to develop into scenarios - one for this week, one for next week

4. Develop scenario
- characters
- events
- timing /temporal frame of play

5. Choose characters and fill them out.
- who or what are they accountable to?
- what is their personality / behavior or outlook like?
- dogma, ideology, “beliefs”

6. Play game -
- sequential turns
- direct responses when appropriate

7. Stop playing with enough time to discuss what happened in the game.

 Call to witness the present for the future

New platform captures tales of care and solidarity

From the diaries of Samuel Pepys to the Mass-Observation Diary of the Second World War, the present has been recorded for the future.

Now an urgent call-out, led by social scientists at Lancaster University, is appealing for photographs, artwork, sounds, videos, blogs, lectures, poetry, prose, letters and essays to capture the public experience of COVID-19.

 Your Maps of Life Under Lockdown 

How 2020 Remapped Your Worlds

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-coronavirus-lockdown-neighborhood-maps/

 The Six-Hour Experimental Opera Happening on Zoom

On Tuesday night, more than 250 performers will participate in Full Pink Moon, a streamed version of an opera by composer Pauline Oliveros.

 How to use those beautiful antique sewing patterns

This is issue #30 from July 1902, complete with pattern sheet.
My mission: to find a pair of drawers in this spaghetti.

 The Social Distance Project

the community donation project that started as a tweet
meg zukin asked the internet for relationship drama in the time of coronavirus and got so many responses that she created a google doc that anyone could view with a small donation ($1). after raising over $5,000, she turned the doc into a free and public website.

8/17/20

fwb
A man I had bad sex with 5 months ago and haven’t seen since, whom claims to have a respiratory problem so he’s being “extra cautious”, asked to be quarantine buddies. I think people may be getting desperate.

8/17/20

guilt trip
I feel guilty. I have bipolar and am I unmedicated. We have been in and out of complete lockdown for 6 months now, and all of my usual outlets have been cut off, my routines have changed. These are things I don't usually cope with. But I am thriving. I’ve lost weight, my skin is clearer, my sex life is better, I'm calmer, more relaxed, my moods have never been more balanced. In a situation I shouldn’t be, I am thriving. My partner ordered us some gym equipment online and has been enforcing strict bedtime routines so we don’t get caught up binge watching Netflix. We are eating better, talking more, I have never felt this loved or supported in my life, and I feel guilty for it. I feel guilty for blossoming in an environment that my friends, family and others are experiencing so much difficultly with.

7/17/20

go :) away :)
Honey, I love you to death and we’ve been married 30 years and I know we’re fine, but could you, for just one day, stay completely silent and not look at me at all?

Author: meg zukin
Source: https://www.thesocialdistanceproject.org

 107 Long Distance Relationship Activities

Because, let's face it, we are in an LDR with the entire world ATM.... Just for inspo, not suggesting you do anything couple related or kinky with students.

 Dreams under confinement

Here is a collective document where you can record the dreams you have under whatever level of confinement.

• Please write your initials (or pseudo) and the date.
• Please specify the conditions and place of your confinement: self isolation, social distancing, quarantine, state imposed house confinement.
• Just put your dreams at the end of the document, after the last written dream, don’t worry about date order.
• Obviously do not edit or delete anyone else’s dreams.
• I will be saving the document regularly in case of any disasters.
• Kiss

 The Pandemic Experience Archive

We are currently experiencing an unprecedented historical moment. Each week, for the rest of the semester, you will create a document that chronicles your experience as events unfold over the next 7 weeks. Your document might take the form of:

• Journal entries
  
• Series of photos
  
• Instagram/Facebook/social media posts
  
• Voice/video recordings
  
• Recorded Zoom/Skype sessions
  
• Emails/letters/text message exchanges
  
• Drawings/creative works
  
• Poems
  
  

Choose a form above and stick with it! You can always add additional types of documents to your archive. This project is an opportunity to reflect on and respond to your experience of this unprecedented event as it unfolds in real time. You can use this as a way to reflect, to play, to ponder, to theorize, to look closely, or to connect with others.

 Write an email to somebody who inspires you

A student I barely know took a few minutes to send me a beautiful email today. Let’s all do this while in lockdown, if we can. Let’s write one email a day to someone whose work has inspired you, someone you care about, someone who has made your life more meaningful. All in for fierce and kind pedagogies

 Spread-Sheet-Introduction* 

(*inspired by the “Building Alternatives” spread sheet of Evening Class London) Found on teaching-net shared doc (See Education-Based Resources)

• Set up a Google Sheet
• In the first column write your name and style it
• Chose an emoji as your course-signature paste it in the second column
• In the third column write: What are you personally interested in or concerned about?
• Find common themes and comment on your colleagues interest in the fourth column in your font-style
  
  

Source: https://evening-class.online/

 POD MAPPING

Pod-mapping strategy for mutual aid

Author: Rebel Sidney Black
facebook.com/rebelblack007
Source: Mutual Aid for Survival (See Community-Based Resources)

Pod Mapping is a tool for mutual aid developed by the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective. The mapping tool focuses on the notion of the 'pod' as a microcosm of community.

Using 'pod' as a microcosm of community makes it more concrete, easier to get organized, connect, make and follow through with a plan. Pod Mapping therefore relies on concrete names of people that can be called upon in times of need.

The pod map starts with placing yourself in a circle; next step is to fill in dark circles around your circle names of people who you can count on for different services and aid. Some examples might be somebody who can take you to the doctor, provide childcare, purchase and deliver groceries, etc.

The next layer, dotted circles, are people who might become part of the map. The most external layer are larger community groups, networks and resources.

The map therefore moves from the most direct and concrete to less-defined, yet important, forms of support.

The resulting map of mutual aid visualizes who you can call upon in times of need, and vice versa.

Download the pod map and manual here: https://bit.ly/2F5BETT

Neighborhood Pods How-To As things get harder, we show up for our neighbors. As a pod point person, you take on the responsibility of reaching out to your neighbors, checking in on what needs are arising on your block, coordinating a neighborhood group chat or phone tree, and staying in touch with the point people from other neighborhoods for resource pooling.

How to build your pod

• Fill out the survey to volunteer as a pod point person (PPP)
• Starting your pod

  Print (or write out!) copies of the following contact sheet and deliver to your neighbors. Ideally you’ll deliver 30+ fliers to the houses/apartments right around where you live. Ring the doorbell, knock, talk through the flyer with them, and if they aren’t home, leave a flyer. (Be safe about this!! Might be better to just leave the flyer on their porch)

  It is illegal to put things in other people’s mailboxes: try the crack of their door, between screen door and main door, etc.

  Safety advice: leave off your house number

  The flyers are to exchange contact info, in order to start a text thread (or whatsapp, signal, slack, facebook messenger, whatever!) or a phone tree.

  FLYER ASAP IN CASE RESTRICTIONS ON LEAVING HOME ARE PUT IN PLACE

• Naming your pod

  Pick a fun name! My dad’s pod in California is “the Peralta Street Blockheads”

• Building your pod

  Create a group chat (ex: Whatspp, Groupme, Slack) for your neighborhood and as people text you, add them to the group

  Troubleshoot as needed - help folks download any necessary apps and get set up if they need it, answer questions, ask neighbors to help bring more people in.

  Neighborhood Pods should have between 5 and 30 people. If there are more than 30 neighbors interested, figure out how to split up into two pods.

  Use the conversation guide below to get to know the people in your pod, and to get a sense of what support needs may come up in your pod.

• Stay in touch with your pod members.

  Share wider-community resources, and keep up with how folks are doing. If your pod members are into individual check-ins, do those as often as feels right. (Right now, your pod might do check-ins every few days. If the pandemic escalates, your pod may choose to check in every day.) If you are PPP of a larger pod, consider establishing a phone tree for individual calls or texts.

found in COVID-19 Mutual Aid Resource Links)

• Building care teams

There is an example of how to create a local community response team in an apartment building.

• Set up a mutual aid fund

A crowdfunded solidarity funding pool that can be distributed out to those experiencing financial difficulties.

• Actions you can take right now: Do a self-inventory. What do you have? How will you support yourself? What can you share?

  Your inventory can include your skills: making creative recipes with canned food, talking to friends who are in panic, making plans, making spreadsheets, getting organized.

  Maybe you have class privilege. Consider giving money directly to others. This can be sick and disabled folks who can’t work, artists who are having gigs canceled, students who don’t have access to other resources, funding an herbalist to make plant medicine & immunity boosters for others.

  Offer housing for students whose campuses are getting shut down.

• Offer assistance to others.

  Check in with sick and disabled friends, especially those who already have to self-isolate in non-pandemic times. Resource hoarding has also impacted people who need wipes, masks, and hand sanitizers for daily survival. Share.

  Drop off groceries for elders and immunocompromised .

  Cook extra meals and share them with neighbors, housed and unhoused.

Safe practices

 DIY Masks making tactics

3 Questions: Historian Emma Teng on face masks as 公德心 "Confucianism, a philosophy that has significantly influenced East Asian cultures, encourages respect for elders and care for young children. It would therefore be largely unthinkable to discuss sacrificing older people to the pandemic using a cost-benefit analysis. If wearing a face mask can help protect someone’s grandparents, that is your duty. It is also considered a social responsibility to do one’s part in controlling the pandemic to ensure that schools remain open for the younger generation."

Author:Emma Teng
Source: https://news.mit.edu/2020/meanings-face-masks-emma-teng-0819

>Tactic 1

>Tactic 2

> Tactic 3

> Tactic 3

>Tactic 4

>Tactic 5

>Tactic 6

 How soap kills the coronavirus/

Wash your hands

 PSA Safe Grocery Shopping in COVID-19 Pandemic 

Disinfecting groceries and take out food

Safe grocery shopping and takeaway from a physician trained in sterile techniques used in surgery. Coronavirus can live on plastic and metal surfaces for 3 days and cardboard for 1 hour, and aerosolized (in the air) for 3 hours.

 Addressing COVID-19 Face Mask Shortage

Information from Stanford Medicine Anesthesia Informatics and Media Lab.

• What appropriate replacement materials are suitable for facemasks when no PPE is available?
  
• Links to consider if you have to make a mask
  
• Can Facial Masks be Disinfected for Re-use?
  

Software Review

Try to include only software that is free or has a basic free version that is functional and doesn't expire in 30 days. Better if its FLOSS.

General info on FLOSS alternatives

online tools for the pandemic

Alternative Office Suites

FLOSS

• OnlyOffice like Google Docs, best used with free NextCloud accounts.
• Cryptpad Sequel to Etherpad & alternative to Google Docs.

• Notion collaborative pad, database, wiki and all-round project management environment.

Collective text editing

FLOSS

PADs to easily make and start working

• Etherpad.nl
• Riseup pad
• Xpub pad

SOURCECODE to make your own instance on your server

• Etherpad

Note: pads are automatically destroyed after 60 days of inactivity. You can choose lifespan of pad, up to one year.

• Your World of Text

Your World of Text is an infinite grid of text editable by any visitor. You cannot select text with your mouse to copy, links dropped in do not become hyperlinks automatically, you can however individual characters into URLs via the menu function. Very very fun for plaintext and ASCII addicts. Here's a sample. And here is the source code on github.

Online HQs

Proprietary

• Canvas

For tasks like sending course announcements, sharing course materials, collecting assignments, and grading and feedback of students.

• Slack

FLOSS

• Mattermost

An open source alternative to Slack

   XPUB is thinking of the ff combo for their online classroom set-up

Except for the pads, you might need some skillz to set this up. If you are interested in learning more, I dunno, maybe ask Interaction Station or XPUB people?

• XMPP chat (https://xmpp.org/software/clients.html)

• Mumble voice server (low latency audio only chatrooms, usually used in online video games).

• Pads (etherpad, cryptopad)

Online classrooms

FLOSS

• Jitsi No need to make account, you can have unique/personalized URLs for a fixed classroom address

+ alternatives based on Jitsi (some of them come from the 'Digital Solidarity Networks' pad ):

• Framatalk
• Meet.roflcopter
• Meet.greenhost
• lurk.org (almost stable)
• https://videobelpilot.surf.nl/ surf.nl (in partnerships with NL educational institutions)
• mayfirst
• autistici inventati
• systemli
• disroot
• guifi net
• waag
• Domaine Public
• Freifunk München
• collective tools
• vc4all
• Bluebutton
• Spatial Chat

I like this one a lot. They now let max. 25 users in free version. It's like the classroom is a sketchboard/space, you can move your chat avatar around and place it in that space. Zoom in and out of the "room" with two-finger drag on trackpad. If you move away from someone else's circle avatar, their volume decreases. If you drag yourself far enough, you can't hear them at all. You can share youtube videos and images by "pinning" them in the "room". There are two separate "spaces" (hover on the space, next to the left menu bar, a tiny arrow appears, click on it, it will take you to another "space", so you can basically "sit" in diff parts of the room. So fun, but pricey. Reinaart showed me this one! Also you can share multiple videos and images. If you move away from video, sound also decreases and then disappears.

Proprietary

• Whereby (fka appear.in)
• Zoom
• Bluejeans
• Google Hangouts Meet
• BlueButton -> open source.
• RIOT.IM -> Built on Matrix protocol, new standard for decentralised communication.
• Discord -> Voice and text chat, also used for group work

Chat messaging

Proprietary

• GroupMe

Screen recording

Proprietary

• Panopto -> recording, live streaming, sharing and managing videos
• Loom -> capturing with or without a camera
• Quicktime Player

FLOSS

For converting and compressing video/audio files

• MPEG Streamclip
• Handbrake -> Open Source, only for Mac/Windows/Linux
• OBS

Drawing/mapping

FLOSS

• FreeMind
• Graphviz and web version

Using very very basic code you can create a mind map.
digraph G {
"Welcome" -> "To"
"To" -> "Web"
"To" -> "GraphViz!"
}

You can edit the code that appears in the field to make a mind map. Change Welcome to your name, click on generate graph and see the change. If you wanted to add a new connection, you could try the following:

digraph G {
"My Name" -> "To"
"To" -> "Web"
"To" -> "GraphViz!"
"Another Name" -> "My Name"
}

• WBO
• Mural Collaborative whiteboard, plays gifs, you do have to sign up to access, works well with 6 people, haven't stress tested with more. UPDATE ON STRESS TEST: We made the research with our students all in one mural. Then we broke it :-) Mural is a great tool, until you put more than a gig of content on it. It worked for our classes though (about 30 students), next time we will give a short explanation about image compression! Embedding content works on Mural, this was done with pro account (not free version) Have a nice weekend!

Mathijs

• Coggle Very easy to set up and navigate, we were able to build a clear, concise yet complex max with little time. Have curvy and colorful lines you can draw to connect texts. Here is their API documentation and it's made using their software, so you can see what a mindmap could look like. The medium is the massage.
• Graphcommons For making big data type maps, the ones with lots of nodes (dots) and lots straight lines drawn between them. The type of network visualization you see in FBI/CIA type investations or like to map the traffic of bitcoin transactions or smth. I dunno if there are more features, probably, but the basic outcome would be that.

Proprietary

• Miro live, visual, collaborative whiteboard environment.
• AWW App
• Sketchboard
• Mindmeister
• Web whiteboard
• Google Drawing OK. It's Google. I know. But. It's really easy to use, for making collectively drawn fliers or posters together esp. with multiple users.

Process diary/web design

FLOSS

• Hotglue

• Padlet Nice to use, easy, and here are 6 alternatives to Padlet (have not stress tested any of them)

File sharing

FLOSS

• Firefox send
• Nextcloud
• Volafile
• Snapdrop It's like airdrop on your browser. You can also send messages to each other (right click on the person you want to message. I believe you share files over wifi, so you have to all be on same network. MIND BLOWN. AMAZING. TEHC.

Proprietary

• WeTransfer
• My Airbridge
• Dropbox

Audio transcription software

Proprietary

• Otter
• Thisten

Audio (streaming)

FLOSS

• Echo.lurk.org
• Mixxx Basic DJing software. Supposed to be easy, for people with no DJ experience, but yeah, it has a very loooong manual of how to get started using it. So am not entirely sure how easy it is. Surely people who are musical will find it interesting, tho. Javier from Interaction Station is giving a workshop to students on how to use it for a radio broadcast. Will update. Date today: 02-12-2020

Proprietary

• Anchor
• Soundcloud

Video streaming

Proprietary

• YouTube
• Facebook Live

Increase your video length limit. By default, you can upload videos that are up to 15 minutes long. Verified accounts can upload videos longer than 15 minutes.

To verify your Google Account:

1. On a computer, go to https://www.youtube.com/verify.

2. Follow the steps to verify your Google Account. You can choose to get a verification code through a text message on a mobile device or an automated voice call.

3. Make sure you're using an up-to-date version of your browser to upload files greater than 20GB.

Maximum upload size

The maximum file size you can upload is 128GB or 12 hours, whichever is less. We've changed the limits on uploads in the past, so you may see older videos that are longer than 12 hours.

Game/interaction design tools

FLOSS List of resources

Social Media

Useful groups

• Covid-19 Pooling Our Resources Towards an Unpredictable Future
• #CoronaContract
• Pandemic Pedagogy
• Pirate care
• Teaching Fine Art at a Distance
• Teaching during COVID-19
• Online Art & Design Studio Instruction in the Age of "Social Distancing"
  
  

Thread:
Question: I'm interested in how anyone is handling social practice or socially engaged curriculums online. I am teaching an Art and Activism course and my students have just had a few community meetings and started designing a community mural at a homeless shelter near campus. Since we more than likely can't continue how do I keep them engaged with the original intention? I'm considering an at-home creative placemaking project...

Answer: Asset mapping research about the community is a good remote project

Answer: There might be some projects in the Living as Form archive that model how social practice can happen in disembodied or virtual contexts: http://creativetime.org/.../2011/livingasform/about.htm

Answer: I'm not sure how much longer you'll be working with these students, but I would recommend discussions with them about what they've done so far, and what would make that project more socially engaged and have more impact outside of the shelter context. Have them do proposals for public art projects - perhaps online ones now - that would offer the sheltered population more strategies for not "othering" the shelterless. Have them come up with proposals for other urgent issues - strategies for reimagining the panic of this time, how to make the movement to provide mutual aid more visible to those in the mainstream, how to cope with the huge shift in society that is happening and turn it into something that is life-enhancing rather than growing fear. I've been teaching socially engaged art and social practice for about 40 years, so I'm glad to hear that you're facilitating work of this kind.

Answer: There have been hackathons to help do medical work to fight COVID. 3d printing PPE or doing research. Home/houseless are especially vulnerable would be good to help find protocols and other ways to help. Food and blood banks are low too. So many opportunities to do good!
Answer: Many of us are currently engaged in a very large socially engaged project related to flattening the curve- what can your students learn in this moment related to physical distance and finding ways to move thru solitude? What are ways to stay connected? Student could do writings, skypes, drawings, meditation. What does it mean when we as a ”body” slow down in a conscious effort to care for each other.

Answer: Perhaps something concerning the 2020 census or inventory of objects in your immediate environment?

Answer: I highly recommend leading breathing meditations with students via ZOOM. We did a check-in yesterday in both classes (Body Image and Art and Art in a Time of War). While the levels of anxiety varied, all the students were dealing with something (the fragility of their economic situations, fears about not graduating, family and other health stresses). I gave them two 4-minute drawing prompts: draw the feeling of uncertainty that you're experiencing , draw a positive resolution of that uncertainty. Their images were moving and healing for them to do.

Thread:
Question: Curious to learn how you're approaching your Community and Social Practice classes in the age of social distancing...

Answer: Great question. Maybe start with something actionable and basic. I was wondering if we could do something as basic as organizing people to help make masks, I see a lot hospitals and health workers asking for this. Can we organize our two classes to collaborate on this? We have 4 sewing machines in art education area. Maybe a plan to see who can send fabric and thread and who has a sewing machine etc. Who can contact local hospitals and clinics to see if they want and need masks and how many? Etc. I can be available to help. I am planning to send out a message to art ed students. Masks can also have power messages on them.

Answer: The next assignment for my class is to have them write a physical love letter that they can post from their windows, or post on the street. A love letter to whom ever, or whatever they want. It feels to me that we need to be reminded of love we can share and the support we can give at this time.

Answer: There are several threads here that have addressed this topic. Several of us are asking students to create work for windows, doors, front stoops and porches, balconies, etc. with themes of interconnection, love as contagion, loneliness, how to overcome panic, how to sit with uncertainty, how to prevent the rise in authoritarianism, racism, xenophobia, how to be antidotes to fear. They can work with found objects, things in the recycle bin, etc. I'm having the students create masks to prevent face recognition in surveillance systems and masks to radiate love to others. They will also make altars to heal the trauma of this time and put them in their front yards or in their hallways. In my cultural identity class they will make work about their cultural heritage and what their ancestors are teaching them right now about resilience, adaptability and courage. They will also make work to overcome fear of difference and reimagine future generations without white supremacy, patriarchy, and the violence born of oppressive systems. Check in's each time we meet online.

Answer: Not sure what you are after, but there's always important discussions to hold, discussions around: intentions of SEA, effects of SEA, ethics, different working methodologies. This past week, as a SEArtist I've been thinking a lot about the meaning of "social solidarity". All of a sudden everyone is talking about it, which is beautiful, but up to a few days ago no one really bothered about this (at least that's my perspective of society around me) - don't get me wrong, I'm not undermining anyone/anything. As a SEArtist I feel that social solidarity can be practised in such an easy manner, in 'normal' life situations - it just takes some sensitivity. So the days we're currently living have made me feel the urgency to define the term "social solidarity".

Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/onlineartanddesigninstruction/

Twitter Hashtags

• #onlineteaching

Online Archives and Libraries

Virtual museum/gallery tours

• The ultimate museum list (mostly US-centric)
• 12 famous museums

Online libraries

• Radical Open Access More like a consortium of different scholar-led publishers who offer all of their publications (or should offer, according to the blurb) all their publications for free download!!!
• Library Genesis
• Monoskop
• Aaaaarg
• Memory of the World
• UbuWeb
• SciHub
• Project Gutenberg
• Pad.ma
• Leftovers An archive of radical presses from different places, lots of really interesting historical political content/publications

Other resources

• Ask for PDFs from People with Institutional Access Best facebook group ever!!!! Check their files section for a selection of everything that people have ever uploaded to this group. The readings list of all types of formal and informal scholars who are outside of realms of institutional access and are usually researching stuff that is quite interesting/outside of the usual ciswhitemaleangloeuro academic echo chamber. Thankfekkinggawd.
• Archive.org
• Wikimedia Commons
• Cabin Fever
• The Public Domain Review
• SciHub
• Flatten the curve, grow the care: What are we learning from Covid-19
• Freely released e-books by Haymarket Books
• JSTOR

Inspirational Films, Art, Performance and Literature

 Pandemic Art

• ‘Learning of My Fragility’: Artist Larry Achiampong’s Letters to His Children

https://artreview.com/learning-of-my-fragility-artist-larry-achiampong-letters-to-his-children
The text itself is based on testimonies to the artist’s children, composed in direct response to their enforced period of separation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• COVID Manifesto by Cauleen Smith

23 principles posted over the course of April, May, and June on Instagram.

https://www.uchicagoartsblog.art/archive/2020/7/30/bap1q94y9mh3h2hm3hf9efm6ll8gwg

• Paranoia TV

steirischer herbst reacts to the fears and uncertainties of today's world and reinvents itself as a media consortium. From 24 September to 18 October, Paranoia TV becomes a platform for the uncanny and disturbing. Broadcasting on several frequencies around the world, it responds artistically and critically to the global pandemic and the complications it has introduced, not only to our everyday lives, but also with regards to the production of cultural events.

Source: https://www.paranoia-tv.com/en

• CC: World – The Otolith Group: ZONE 2

"Living through the compounded crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic confronts you with the confusing inexperience of living inside a capitalist crisis whose global scale and planetary scope is insensible in its inhuman abstraction and painful in its concrete mortality."

Enter Zone 2, the latest film by The Otolith Group premiering as part of this week's CC: World. From trips to the last remaning protected nature reserves of London, the Walthamstow Wetlands and the River Lea, to the BLM movement to a diary of new quotidian hygienic practices, the film explores sonic and visual encounters capturing our present and singing to an unknown future.

Source: https://ccworld.hkw.de/zone-2/

• Face Masks Hold Fish Tanks and Overgrown Patches of Botanics in Surreal Illustrations by Kit Layfield

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/07/kit-layfield-mask-illustrations

• The Endless Doomscroller by Ben Grosser

https://endlessdoomscroller.com/
As an alternative interface, The Endless Doomscroller acts as a lens on our software-enabled collective descent into despair.

• Get Well Soon by Johanna Hedva

http://getwellsoon.labr.io/
The comments posted on gofundme.com's medical fundraisers form a revealing archive. These messages express care, well wishes, sympathy and generosity in the face of personal adversity and systemic failure. This is an archive of mutual aid in response to a ruthless for-profit health system.

It is an archive that should not exist.

• Lucy McRae's Solitary Survival Raft explores fear and hope during the coronavirus pandemic

https://www.dezeen.com/2020/07/09/lucy-mcraes-solitary-survival-raft-fear-hope-coronavirus-pandemic/
The raft is part of a series of works that McRae describes as "prototypes to test the body when confined, or deprived of physical contact."

• SENSOREE BREATHE ZINE by Kristin Neidlinger & EunJi Jung

https://www.sensoree.com/artifacts/sensoree-breathe-zine/
2020 – the year of Breathe – a respiratory pandemic that put the globe on pause and in masks and then with “I can’t breathe” cultural uprising for equality. One thing is true, we all share the air.

Films and performances shot from one's home/ bedroom / hotel room

• Ahmet Öğüt presents a selection of his favourite video art works made entirely in domestic sphere [1]
• The sun is most important, Magada Starska, 2011 [2]
• MOTHERTIME, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, 2018 [3]
• Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, Chantal Akerman, 1976 [4]
• THIS IS NOT A FILM, Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, 2011
• Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock, 1954
• Hush! Viktor Kossakovsky, 2002
• UNREST, Jennifer Brea 2017 (now streaming on Netflix!)
• Je, tu, il, elle, Chantal Akerman, 1974
• La chamber, Chantal Akerman, 1972
• Portrait d'une Paresseuse, Chantal Akerman, 1986
• Searching, Aneesh Chaganty, 2018
• Noah, Walter Woodman, 2013
• Hotel Diaries, John Smith, 2001-2007
• Semiotics of the Kitchen, Martha Rosler, 1975[5]
• Hotel Diaries, John Smith, 2001-2007 [6]
• Fenstergucker, Abfall etc - People Looking Out Of the Window, Trash etc., Kurt Kren, 1962 [7]
• Practically all films by Amsterdam-based Super 8 filmmaker Jaap Pieters, nicknamed "The eye of Amsterdam"[8]
• Gob Squad – Room Service (Help Me Make It Through The Night) [9]

 film collections

• Quarantine Film Club Compiled by Sheffield Transformed
• LOCKDOWN CINEMA CLUB (PHILIPPINE SHORT FILMS)
• IDFA makes over 300 documentaries available online
• Tired of Netflix? Stream Experimental Films and Video Art

Other works

• Benera & Estefan, Citrus Tristeza, 2018
• Hay Kranen, 2020
• Arts of the working class, a newspaper based in Berlin
• For Those who had left and Those who are struggling, Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu, 2020

 literature

• Literature in the time of coronavirus: a reading list
• The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892
• Guggenheim Museum Releases Over 200 Modern Art Books Online for Free

 Diaries

• The Cloud Sailor Diary: Shanghai Life in the Time of Coronavirus

https://networkcultures.org/longform/2020/03/19/the-cloud-sailor-diary-shanghai-life-in-the-time-of-coronavirus
blog by Tsukino T. Usagi

• Stay Home Diary by Bitter Melon Poetry

https://bittermelon.weebly.com/stay-home-diary
"We invite Asian writers, artists & zinemakers around the world to submit short diary entries to STAY HOME DIARY, an online collective archive being updated every day:"

• lestweforget /wuhan2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/world/asia/coronavirus-china-fang-fang-author.html She Kept a Diary of China’s Epidemic. Now She Faces a Political Storm.
“If authors have any responsibilities in the face of disaster, the greatest of them is to bear witness.” Here are excerpts from the author Fang Fang’s controversial chronicle of life and death in Wuhan.

• Wuhan 2020/02/19-21

http://blackbook.hk/media/BBAnewsletter_draft09.pdf
Wuhan Diary Part four: Quarantined
"When I was young I had an idea for a novel where all of humanity would enter a 100 year-long sleep mode and nature would slowly recover. Of course, this novel was never written, but in January towards the beginning of February, I was a video of a wild pig fleeing in the Second Ring Road, and there were a lot of reports about animals being expelled or even buried alive because of the epidemic."

 open calls

• Covid-19: The UN Issues Global Call to Creatives for First Time Ever

An open brief has been launched by the United Nations in a bid to generate localised messaging around Covid-19, writes Addison Capper [10]

• Quarantzine-01

A Zine of art made during the current COVID-19 lockdown, published online, every month, until "the end" of this current emergency.
Whilst Gaada has suspended all face-to-face workshops, this zine serves as a project to maintain contact with our core group of users, but we also wanted to extend the opportunity to anyone currently in self-isolation.

Whilst the services everywhere feel the strain, this zine will be published digitally, with a printed version published in the future to celebrate 'the end' of this current period.

Submissions
Anyone currently in self-isolation are welcome to submit some art + this can include drawings, text, photographs etc … made during your period of isolation.
We hope contributing helps keep your spirits up!

Rotterdam and Dutch-based Resources

 General Help Resources

Meldpunt schade coronacrisis

• ("notification point for damages caused by the corona crisis"), for cultural workers/producers in the Netherlands:

Meldpunt Kunstenbond

• database where art/design/culture freelancers can enter cancelled commissions

(Kunstenbond/Arts Federation is a lobby organization for fair payment and fair practices in the Dutch cultural sector: "Whether you are a dancer, designer, sculptor, app builder, lighting technician, production manager, art teacher, musician, photographer, animator or any other support function for creators. The Kunstenbond is there for all creatives and supporters of creatives in the Netherlands who share a passion for making. The passion is fine, but what about the dough? An honest income for all creators, that sounds logical but is unfortunately not the reality. That has to change.") https://kunstenbond.nl
Cultuur en Corona

• similar survey created by Boekmanstichting (Dutch cultural policy non-profit organization):

Gevolgen coronavirus amateurkunst

• Consequences of the coronavirus for amateur arts - online survey by Stichting Amateurkunst (Dutch non-profit organization for amateur arts):

Letter of the Dutch minister of culture, education and science

• on the consequences of the corona crisis for the sector:

Dutch left-wing oppositional parties (Social Democrats, Greens, Socialists) demand emergency funds for artists

Financial help for freelancers in the corona crisis

• By the municipality of Rotterdam. Includes PDF form for requesting financial help:

 Financial Aid / Worker’s rights

Workers' rights in the Netherlands in the COVID-19 crisis

Regional Office of Self-employment

• (RBZ)'s scheme for offering living allowance (social assistance):
  

Very helpful scheme for the self-employed facing financial hardship.
This might apply to you.
(There is an application process involved.)

Dutch government's new economic measures for the current times of crisis

• You might very well be eligible. Look closely if you are facing hardship. Useful. It includes extra support for entrepreneurs, deferral of taxes and reduction of fines, etc:
  
  

Worker's rights in the Netherlands during Corona

• Put out by Vloerwerk. Contains what rights you have as a worker. Covers permanent, part-time and zero percentage contracts. Also freelancers. Provides some English translation of the documents. Provides links to services (available in multiple languages).
  
  

Financial help for freelancers in the corona crisis

• municipality of Rotterdam
  

includes PDF form for requesting financial help.

Guide & Resources for international students, artists & art workers in the Netherlands

• prepared by Student Council Rietveld & Sandberg
  

With helpful information on the status of self-employed workers, zero-hour contracts and governmental financial aids available for freelancers, in English.

Can residence permit holders apply for the coronavirus support (“Tozo”) for ZZPers?

• Attention all NL-based artists/freelancers who are non-EU residents. Here is a comprehensive & clear text (from my immigration lawyer) about your rights to corona-related governmental assistance.
  'The only safe answer, for the time being, is that it could be considered to be a violation of the requirement of Dutch immigration law that you are obliged at all times, as a non-EU citizen immigrant with a conditional right of stay in the Netherlands, to have sufficient, independently earned financial means to support yourself and your family without making use of public assistance'
• Read more here and note that Jeremy has said he plans to be a definitive source of information on this, and will update the URL as new information comes up.
  
  

Coronavirus updates (Covid-19)

• Special coverage of the legal impact of coronavirus in the Netherlands
  

Get insights and guidance about the latest legal news regarding the coronavirus and what it means for your rights under Dutch law.
GMW will continue to update this page with the latest developments as they occur. Please note that laws change, especially in such a challenging situation. Legal advice provided here is correct at the time of writing.

 Food

Voedselbanks / Foodbanks

• Affordable food
  

Community-run foodback where they redistribute perfectly-fine products that corporate supermarkets are obliged to throw away. Foodbanks are open to everybody, and are much much cheaper. They give out free bread if you buy anything from them. You need to have cash.

They have three locations in Rotterdam (Noord, Oost, Zuid). The Noord one is just behind the central station: Jacob Loisstraat 24-30 3033 RE Rotterdam Open: Ma-Za 10:00 – 22:00 & Zo 14:00-20:00

Rotterdam food co-op BioBulkBende

• The only (currently) volunteer-run food co-op in Rotterdam who order food once a month in bulk as a vereniging.
  Usually have an open day every first Monday of the month, but not anymore until further notice.
  Is currently located on Almondestraat 157.
  
  

The Barricade – Utrecht

• ACU has changed from a cultural-political centre, to a solidarity kitchen that hands out free take-away meals. It’s open 7 days a week and provides people who need food and have less access to it with a decent evening meal.

 Housing 

Woonbond

• ("Housing Federation"), Dutch lobby and support non-profit for people who live in rented apartments.
  
  

Rent waivers granted to the big national museums (but not to...)

Puntentelling woningen

• Online tool for calculating how much rent you should be paying in The Netherlands.
  
  

Bondprecaire Woonvormen

• Housing advocacy group
  
  

https://www.iamexpat.nl/housing/real-estate-news/government-rules-tenants-cannot-be-evicted-during-corona-crisis

• Government rules that tenants cannot be evicted during corona crisis
  

The Minister for Housing in the Netherlands has come to an agreement with landlords that tenants should not be evicted due to problems arising from the coronavirus pandemic.

• Dutch and English-speaking BPW standard letter to apply for rent reduction.

https://bondprecairewoonvormen.nl/2020/04/voorstel-voor-huurverlaging-standaardbrief/ Bondprecaire has a standard letter for applying for rent reduction. " Given the precarious situation in which there is already a significant part of the tenants of living spaces. Assuming that this situation will deteriorate rather than improve in the coming period. Request the government as an emergency measure to allow a temporary rental stop for both the social sector and the free sector "

 Self-organisation

Cultural Workers Unite

• Initiative addressing and fighting precarity in Rotterdam's cultural sector
  

https://culturalworkersunite.typeform.com/to/oJRCRB?fbclid=IwAR3RXSx9jPS-rVHKSi5QripltKLW0Jr-a0LadHvtg-PCkpqXX-ffFl5J5uk

Rotterdam zet door ("Rotterdam persists")

• Website created by Rotterdam Partners (Rotterdam city marketing) for shops, services and cultural/arts events available in Rotterdam during the Coronacrisis:
  

(Helpful if you want to spread news about your own online events and special activities)

Digital Solidarity Networks

• a shared listing of tools, practices and readings for practices of digital solidarity and conviviality
  
  

Buurtwerk ("Neighborhood Works")

• Overview of social work/aid teams in Rotterdam's districts
  
  

[https://www.facebook.com/groups/charloishelpelkaar/ Charlois Help Elkaar

• A mutual aid group for inhabitans of Charlois.
  

A form to request help:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQUu_BZvG9OqbrDhVxQxE68i3KvR5suvnqDZz4Q5UR9za6Og/viewform
A form to offer help: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfKZMJnuaXPFG6J-XqeRGCsypa2pViFfaeYwLnMJCffkhCrnA/viewform

Delfshaven helpt

• Neighborhood help in Rotterdam's Delfshaven district for people affected by the crisis
  
  

 Debates

The arts sector is now at the brink of collapse for the second time in twelve years extensive and informative interview (in Dutch) with Koen Bartijn en Sepp Eckenhaussen from Platform BK (Dutch contemporary artists' self-help organization) on artists falling through the cracks of the Dutch financial emergency support system:

Mapping Precarity of Cultural workers in Rotterdam

• Survey: "Do you work, or have worked with or within institutions for arts, design, theater, music, performance, film, dance, a library, a museum or a festival? Are you low-paid, over-worked, a freelancer, on a zero hour contract, an intern, a volunteer, without pension or little job security?
• With the Covid-19 outbreak it has become even more evident that the Cultural sector in Rotterdam depends too highly on precarious workers.
• Through filling out the following anonymous form we hope to collect stories to map the extent of this problem, historically as well as within the context of Covid-19, so we might begin to foster more worker-led solidarity and formulate collective demands.
• We’re uniting to hold both the municipality & the institutions accountable for the improvement & implementation of the ‘Fair Practice Code’.
• We believe your voice should be heard!"
  
  

Cultuur en solidariteit in tijden van Corona

• (Culture and Solidarity in the Times of Corona)
  

Het Nieuwe Instituut
with Jelena Barišić, Hasna El Maroudi, Sheree Lenting, Tarona Leonora en Derek Otte.

Cultural Workers Shouldn't Pay for the COVID-19 Pandemic in NL

Feminist Response

 From insights to action: Gender equality in the wake of COVID-19

This publication summarizes data, research, and policy work by UN Women’s Policy and Programme Division on the pandemic’s impact on women and girls, including the impact on extreme poverty, employment, health, unpaid care, and violence against women and girls. The publication also brings into focus the paucity of gender data and calls for greater investment and prioritization of data on the gendered effects of the crisis.

Authors: Ginette Azcona, Antra Bhatt, Jessamyn Encarnacion, Juncal Plazaola-Castaño, Papa Seck, Silke Staab, and Laura Turquet
Source:https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/09/gender-equality-in-the-wake-of-covid-19 short link https://cutt.ly/CfCibsz

 Climate, COVID & Care: Feminist Journeys

Climate, Covid and Care: Feminist Journeys is a collection of journeys, stories, and ideas from five feminist activists working at the intersection of gender justice and climate justice. Through conversation and storytelling, the zine aims to re-shape dominant narratives surrounding the climate and Covid crises, by applying an intersectional lends, and re-centring the voices of Black, Indigenous, and women of colour from the Global South. It includes stories of women’s empowerment in the Pacific, Indigenous innovation in Chad, feminist resilience in Zimbabwe, youth leadership in Peru, and care as an antidote to violence in Pakistan and beyond.

Authors: Oxfam as part of the #ClimateChangers campaign, in collaboration with Betty Barkha, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Maggie H. Mapondera, Majandra Rodriguez Acha, and Meera Ghani
Source: https://bit.ly/3bXzBNS <--------short link

 Ecofeminism And COVID-19: Prejudices Of A Hindu Brahminical Society

The eco-conscious health responses to the COVID-19 outbreak in India have revealed the heterosexist, racial, ageist, casteist and classist prejudices of an overt Hindu-Brahminical society. The idea of environmentalism driven by capitalism, nationalism and cultural imperialism exploits marginalised humans, animals and nature alike. Therefore, the discussions around epidemics, animal welfare, and climate change must be nothing but ecofeminist.

Author: Srishti Gupta
Source: https://feminisminindia.com/2020/04/01/ecofeminism-covid-19-prejudices-hindu-brahminical-society/ ----> short link https://rb.gy/xfgzz3

 ROAR Roundtable: A feminist response to the pandemic

How has COVID-19 affected specific struggles for women’s liberation and struggles to transform reproductive labor around the world?

From a feminist perspective, the coronavirus will have serious consequences not just for women, but for everyone who does not fit the hegemonic model of the rich, white, heterosexual man. The more one deviates from this hegemonic profile, the more they will suffer the health, social and economic impacts of COVID-19. Racial inequalities, poverty, immigration status, culture and sexual-affective diversity are all intersectional factors that accumulate and exacerbate gender inequalities in our neighborhoods.
THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF FEMINIZING POLITICS, Eva Abril

Authors: Eva Abril, Rahila Gupta, Dilar Dirik, International Women’s Alliance, Blandine Rachel, the People’s Congress, Colombia, Chia-Hsu Jessica Chang, Lais Gomes Duarte and Vanessa Zettler of Colectiva Sembrar
Source: https://roarmag.org/essays/roar-roundtable-feminist-struggle

 Feminism, the Pandemic and what comes next

https://ctjournal.org/2020/04/21/feminism-the-pandemic-and-what-comes-next/

 COVID-19 Crisis from a feminist perspective: overview of different articles published

https://wideplus.org/2020/03/26/covid-19-crisis-from-a-feminist-perspective-overview-of-different-articles-published/. ----> https://rb.gy/un1wk8

 Human Traces on the Surfaces of the World by Judith Butler 

https://contactos.tome.press/human-traces-on-the-surfaces-of-the-world/ If we did not know before that we share the surfaces of the world, we do now. The surface that one person touches bears the trace of that person, hosts and transfers that trace, and affects the next person whose touch lands there.

 BUILDING A FEMINIST RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC

https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/building-a-feminist-response-to-the-pandemic/
Social reproduction is what keeps us alive; capitalist production is what’s killing us
A crisis under capitalism is a crisis of social reproduction

Helen Lewis, The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/feminism-womens-rights-coronavirus-covid19/608302/
Pandemics affect men and women differently.

 Judith Butler discuss the COVID-19 pandemic, and its escalating political and social effects in America 

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4603-capitalism-has-its-limits.
Capitalism Has its Limits

 Xenofeminist ways of building a world from scraps

https://strelkamag.com/en/article/xenofeminist-ways-of-building-a-world-from-scraps
author: Lesia Prokopenko

 MADONNA VS BRITNEY

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/britney-spears-coronavirus-strike Comrade Britney, We Salute You
Britney Spears calls for a general strike, Western armchair socialists go wild. No actual on-the-ground communists I know of have commented on this affair. It's a fun read though.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/23/entertainment/madonna-coronavirus-video-intl-scli/index.html Coronavirus is 'the great equalizer,' Madonna tells fans from her bathtub
Madonna realizes that although she's famous, she's not immune to disease and famous people can die of COVID 19 too. She then takes a bath with rose petals.Video

Social Impact

 COVID-19 Data-Pack from information is beautiful

COVID-19 #Coronavirus latest data visualized. Updated 2nd July 2020.

You are welcome to use these graphic in any way you please.

Created by David McCandless, Omid Kashan, Fabio Bergamaschi, Dr Stephanie Starling, Univers Labs, Tom Evans
Source: https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/covid-19-coronavirus-infographic-datapack/ short link --> https://rb.gy/ipxi7n

 Colombia: Armed Groups’ Brutal Covid-19 Measures

Since the arrival of the novel coronavirus to Colombia, armed groups in several parts of the country have imposed curfews, lockdowns, and other measures to prevent the spread of the virus. To enforce their rules, the groups have threatened, killed, and attacked people they perceive are failing to comply.

 Covid-19 and Border Politics

This briefing takes a look at the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for refugees and migrants, and its anticipated influence on the border security and control market.

Key points

• Refugees and migrants are disproportionately affected by COVID-19
• Crowded refugee camps and poor living conditions have led to outbreaks in France, Algeria, Bangladesh, Kenya, Lebanon.
• Those in detention camps (UK, Australia and US) have experienced outbreaks, increased isolation, or maltreatment due to lockdown measures
• Migrant workers in sectors considered ‘essential’ by governments, such as slaughterhouses, have received less health protection measures and been more likely to be exposed to the virus
• Deportations of migrants (US and Saudi Arabia) have led to the spread of coronavirus infections to low-income countries with limited resources to respond
• Migrant workers, and particularly undocumented workers, have been more likely to lose jobs or income due to the pandemic, and less likely to receive medical and social support
• COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented shutdown of borders and restrictions on migration (91% of the global population live in countries with restrictions on international arrivals, 39% in countries with completely closed borders)
• There has been an increase in violent pushbacks of refugees on borders (Croatia), immediate refusals of asylum-seekers (US), raids on migrant camps (Malaysia) as well closure of ports, including to rescue vessels (Italy, Malta), that has led to increased deaths in already deadly regions such as the Mediterranean
• Racist media outlets, organisations, far-right parties and governments (US, Israel, Brazil, Iran, Hungary) have used the crisis to stoke xenophobic sentiments
• Border militarisation has intensified using the excuse of COVID-19, leading to increased troops and hardware deployed on many borders worldwide (US, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia)
• There is a danger that many of these draconian restrictions, justified by governments as temporary health measures, will become permanent even as the pandemic subsides in the same way as civil liberty restrictions remained in place long after 9/11
• Amidst the pandemic, EU, US, Australia and others have continued to pour billions into fortifying borders, strengthening border patrol agencies (CBP, Frontex) and funding often authoritarian third countries to stop migration reaching their shores. The EU proposed significantly increasing budgets for border security in the wake of Covid-19
• Corporations have also continued to receive record levels of border control contracts, in particular arms companies, IT and biometric firms. Many of the companies winning contracts for surveilling, monitoring and tracking migrants have also pitched their same technologies for health and policing related to Covid-19. They will be one of the few winners of the COVID-19 fuelled border militarisation bonanza.

Author: Mark Akkerman in collaboration with Stop Wapenhandel
Source: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/covid-19-and-border-politics

 Global Mayors COVID-19 Recovery Task Force

It is clear that the harm caused by COVID-19 has not been equitable. We, as leaders of major cities across the globe, are clear that our ambition should not be a return to ‘normal’ – our goal is to build a better, more sustainable, more resilient and fairer society out of the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

1. The recovery should not be a return to ‘business as usual’ - because that is a world on track for 3°C or more of over-heating;
2. The recovery, above all, must be guided by an adherence to public health and scientific expertise, in order to assure the safety of those who live in our cities;
3. Excellent public services, public investment and increased community resilience will form the most effective basis for the recovery;
4. The recovery must address issues of equity that have been laid bare by the impact of the crisis – for example, workers who are now recognised as essential should be celebrated and compensated accordingly and policies must support people living in informal settlements;
5. The recovery must improve the resilience of our cities and communities;
6. Climate action can help accelerate economic recovery and enhance social equity, through the use of new technologies and the creation of new industries and new jobs;
7. We commit to doing everything in our power and the power of our city governments to ensure that the recovery from COVID-19 is healthy, equitable and sustainable;
8. We commit to using our collective voices and individual actions to ensure that national governments support both cities and the investments needed in cities, to deliver an economic recovery that is healthy, equitable and sustainable;
9. We commit to using our collective voices and individual actions to ensure that international and regional institutions invest directly in cities to support a healthy, equitable and sustainable recovery.
   
   

Source: https://www.c40.org

 Living, working and COVID-19: First findings

To capture the immediate economic and social effects of this crisis, Eurofound launched a large-scale online survey across the European Union and beyond on 9 April. Entitled Living, working and COVID-19, the aim of the survey is to investigate the impact on well-being, work and telework and on the financial situation of people living in Europe. It includes a range of questions relevant to people across various age groups and life situations.

Topics:

COVID-19
Trust
Quality of life and quality of society
Pay and income
Psychosocial risks
Working time
Subjective well-being
Unemployment
Working conditions
Work-life balance
Living conditions
Teleworking

Author: Eurofound
Source: https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/report/2020/living-working-and-covid-19-first-findings-april-2020 --> short link https://rb.gy/gfr1w9

 Mutual Aid Actions and Initiatives

By no means comprehensive. This section is intended as a survey of mutual aid practices emerging from COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Including case studies outside of North American / European sphere.

ANALYSIS

• Mutual aid: “When the system fails, the people show up”

https://roarmag.org/essays/mutual-aid-when-the-system-fails-the-people-show-up/

• Petr Kropotkin, Mutual Aid a Factor of Evolution

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution

• Lessons from the pandemic for the municipalists in Spain

https://roarmag.org/essays/lessons-from-the-pandemic-for-the-municipalists-in-spain/

• Mutual aid is sweeping the world.

https://thecorrespondent.com/504/mutual-aid-is-sweeping-the-world-heres-how-we-make-this-anarchist-way-of-organising-last
Here’s how we make this anarchist way of organising last

• Mutual Aid: An Illuminated Factor of Evolution - Introduction by David Graeber & Andrej Grubacic
• Pandemic Solidarity: Mutual Aid During Covid-19 Crisis - Edited by Marina Sitris & Colectiva Sembrar
• A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that arise in Disaster - Rebecca Solnit
  
  
• Mutual Aid and the Rebuilding of Chinese Society Part 2

How have the state and market reimagined society?
https://lausan.hk/2020/mutual-aid-and-the-rebuilding-of-chinese-societypart-2

• ‘Solidarity, Not Charity’: A Visual History of Mutual Aid

Tens of thousands of mutual aid networks and projects emerged around the world in 2020. They have long been a tool for marginalized groups.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-22/a-visual-history-of-mutual-aid

INTERNATIONAL AND COMMUNITY ACTION NETWORKS

• Mutual aid and the rebuilding of Chinese society

https://lausan.hk/2020/mutual-aid-and-the-rebuilding-of-chinese-society-part-1/
A report on different mutual aid initiatives in China.

• Useful Mutual-Aid Projects in Response to COVID-19: Experiences from Chinese Volunteers

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kWBo8ff5UNz5ROWH1J1wRLA2N-WnN2JFZXmiO9ji5a8/
Dear Friends, Over these months, we have received so much help from the other parts of the world, and we sincerely appreciated the generosity that has been offered to us. We have grown and have been learning a lot from this crisis. We are all connected, we have all been there before, and we absolutely understand your fear and your suffering at this moment... Therefore we would like to share with you some of the lessons we have learned. We share the world. We shall meet in a place where there is no darkness anymore. 3/30/2020

• Ginkgo Fellows in COVID-19 Relief Action International Relief Team

https://covid-19.ginkgofoundation.org/
As the COVID-19 outbreak aggravates and pivots globally, the Ginkgo Fellows in COVID-19 Relief Action established a COVID-19 International Relief Team on March 10th, 2020, aiming to share experience and provide some guidelines for non-governmental responses towards COVID-19 in China. First-hand experience in addressing the shortage of medical supplies and meeting the basic needs of people in the lockdown are summarized into the Practical Advice on COVID-19, translated into 7 languages to enhance international communication, and passed onto professional organizations in countries affected by or at risk of COVID-19 to support their local response.

• The People’s Solidarity Brigades

https://www.brigades.info
The People’s Solidarity Brigades is a network of self-initiated mutual aid groups acting for self-defence by the people for the people. We operate all over the world. The Brigades started when the COVID-19 pandemic hit us all.
There are currently over 50 brigades federate action groups all over the world.

• Cape Town Together

Cape Town Together is bringing together Community Action Networks or CANS as a rapid community response to COVID-19. We are bringing together professionals working in public health with koeksister auntie's, soccer coaches, teachers, artists and it's growing every day! Some of have worked in outbreak situations before. Others are excellent organisers or amazing carers. We can all share our skills. Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CapeTownTogether

• COVID Seattle-Area Emergency Food Resources Map

During COVID-19, there are resources across Seattle to provide emergency food. Food banks offer supplemental groceries. Seattle Public Schools and other food programs offer to-go meals.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/city.of.seattle.human.services#!/vizhome/Covid-19Seattle-AreaEmergencyFoodResources/COVIDEmergencyFood

• Westside Friends

Westside Friends in LA which runs on a block captain model and has >500 volunteers involved at this point. They've also created a shareable toolkit for others to implement the same model.
Source: https://www.westsidefriends.com/resources

• COVID-19 Mutual Aid Network LA

Comprised of different grassroots organizations, movements, organizers, and volunteers who are committed to organizing material support in the LA community. Providing grocery and supply deliveries, as well as community support services.
Source: https://www.mutualaidla.org/english

• Kadıköy Solidarity Network

Based in Istanbul, the Kadıköy Solidarity Network has been created with the aim of promoting solidarity and bringing the community of Kadıköy together during this time of uncertainty. This network has responded to the urgent needs of local health workers by handcrafting face masks and face shields which they have donated to hospitals. Members of this network also assist elderly and vulnerable neighbors by ensuring that they have essential items in their homes, including groceries and medicine. Source: https://sdgactionawards.org/2020/07/11/kadikoy-solidarity-network-promotes-solidarity/

• C19 People’s Coalition

The C19 People’s Coalition is committed to ensuring that the South African response to the COVID-19 virus is effective, just, equitable, and meets the needs of the most marginal in our unequal country. We are an alliance of social movements, trade unions, community organisations and NGOs united by the Programme of Action we’ve all endorsed. We are in the processes of setting up democratic coordinating structures and activists working groups. Source: https://c19peoplescoalition.org.za/about-us/


FOOD PREPARATION, FOOD AND OTHER DELIVERIES

• Oakland farmers band together to help feed frontline protesters amid demonstrations

https://www.sfgate.com/food/slideshow/Oakland-based-farms-help-feed-frontline-203265.php

• Organising A Solidarity Kitchen: Reflections From Cooperation Birmingham

https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/organising-a-solidarity-kitchen-reflections-from-cooperation-birmingham/

• McDonald’s takeover

https://www.leftvoice.org/workers-in-france-take-over-mcdonalds-to-distribute-food?fbclid=IwAR097U78rIcKcBhytbmjSH5FjXismV79pjA3xnld2B7I8XZITjMcslOxiA4
French workers took over a McDonald's restaurant in Marseille and turned it into a solidarity platform to distribute food aid for those who are in need during the #coronavirus pandemic

• Giving Food to Truck Drivers

https://www.prensalibre.com/vida/que-bueno-es-mi-pais-sec_vida/traileros-recibieron-una-sorpresa-al-pasar-por-el-puente-el-incienso-ultima-hora
People in Guatemala are giving food to truck drivers who do not have places to eat while moving cargo, since the restaurants are closed:

• Employees of HCM City company provide free rice to disadvantaged people

https://vietnamnews.vn/society/674873/employees-of-hcm-city-company-provide-free-rice-to-disadvantaged-people.html
A free rice 'ATM' in Vietnam

• People for Accountable Governance and Sustainable Action

In Metro Manila, Philippines, Pagasa (People for Accountable Governance and Sustainable Action) is feeding families of low-wage daily workers for P700/week with their survival pack. The group buys fresh vegetables from local farmers, too, and helps give them a living.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/pagasaFB/?hc_location=ufi

• ACORN Brighton - Union for the community

ACORN is a renters union that added mutual aid and call outs for volunteers. People are helping isolated people with shopping and getting medicine. They're also organising volunteers for a community kitchen, making and delivering hot meals and food parcels. There are mutual aid groups popping up all over Britain
Source: https://acorntheunion.org.uk/corona/

• Keju Kitchen / Keju Cares

Offering free meals and grocery packages for those in Rotterdam North, every Tuesday and Friday from 18.00-21.00 on Almondestraat in Rotterdam as long as the Corona measures are in effect. Currently delivering care-packages for the elderly.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/KejuKitchen/

• Toronto Public Library

"The discussions to turn libraries into food banks happened a day or so after the decision to close the branches. We see libraries as community hubs and librarians as public servants… Almost right away, we decided to redirect our resources to help with this critical need. We have 100 buildings in neighbourhoods all across the city. We realized, “Okay, we can do this.” The library handles materials all the time. We do plenty of packing and unpacking. We work with communities. It just made sense."
Source: https://torontolife.com/city/we-can-pack-850-food-hampers-in-two-hours-how-the-toronto-public-library-turned-its-branches-into-food-banks

• The People’s Pantry Toronto

We are a volunteer initiative dedicated to safely providing and delivering cooked meals and grocery packages to folks who have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. These communities include low-income and working class families, QT/BIPOC (queer and trans, Black and Indigenous People of Colour), precariously-housed folks, those living with illness or disabilities, and the elderly. COVID-19 has led to the loss of income, an inability to pay rent, insecure housing, evictions, and excessive hoarding at grocery stores across the GTA, making it difficult for many to access basic food items, toiletries, and more.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/675649626532144/about

GROWING FOOD

• Experimental Farm Network

Nate Kleinman of the Experimental Farm Network in south NJ has initiated Co-op Gardens (renamed from the initial "Corona Victory Gardens") to network people across the country to develop new or expand existing home, community, and school gardens to help meet the oncoming wave of food insecurity due to the inevitable economic depression. There are now several hundred of us across the country doing multiple weekly conference calls, collaborating in google groups and reaching out to all sorts of organizations and people seeking resources and helpers.
Source: https://coopgardens.org/

FINANCIAL AID

• GNO Caring Collective

A fundraising effort for providing rental support for those workers who lost their income and don't fit into the categories that received government support, and who also may not have the financial paperwork or employer references that are required by other organizations to receive financial assistance to pay rent. Source: https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-orleans-covid19-rent-aid-for-the-underserved

• Bowdoin Labor Alliance

This student-led mutual aid network fundraises and provides grants of up to $400 for students and community members facing financial hardship as a result of the Coronavirus Pandemic. They welcome assistance with any daily costs of living and unexpected expenses: rent, car payments, groceries, heating oil, surprise medical costs, etc. As requests are funded by donors, student leaders distribute funds from an account at a local credit union to applicants via check, direct transfer, etc. Application done using an online form, with name, address, amount and reason for request. Crowdfunding page setup for each applicant. People make donations to individuals.
Source: https://bowdoinlaboralliance.nationbuilder.com/mutual_aid

PROTECTIVE GEAR / HYGIENE

• Worker-Occupied Factory Sends Soap to Refugee Camp – Coronavirus in Greece

https://unicornriot.ninja/2020/worker-occupied-factory-sends-soap-to-refugee-camp-coronavirus-in-greece-part-2/

• Open Source Designs for Face Shields

The UP College of Fine Arts’ Fablab in Manila and their FabShields program together with the Acacia dormitory have been providing open source designs for face shields while helping provide parts and donations to other 3D printers in the city.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/upcfafablab/

• Manila Protective Gear Sewing Club

Designer Kendi Maristela, together with the Manila Protective Gear Sewing Club and The Open Source Medical Supplies medical team has created an open source design after reverse engineering a PPE. The design, which people can download from the link above, can be used to create one’s own PPE or manufacture them for donations. The Manila Protective Gear Sewing Club has so far donated their output to different organizations, including ones working with the Office of the Vice President.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/manilaprotectivegearsewingclub/?fref=mentions
Link to designs: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1n9hIGMPqrZdRzyEzaCsa1U9l5-oEOtWq?fbclid=IwAR0eiiZCWveYocQnQ8ruFJVoAw0LTpE0EF8-29PtrZEyFYRk9TLMXpzfTs8

• Mondkapjes Maken!

An initiative in Amsterdam of many volunteers sewing mouth masks for health care workers. Source: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-mondkapjes-maken Link to patterns: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-cWT9Rat3aehPwXVfB11IezL4ngFHO40

• Manteros Mutual Aid

"Barcelona’s street vendors (manteros in Spanish, or manters in Catalan), most of whom come from sub-Saharan Africa, face a particularly uncertain future as the government-imposed lockdown forbids non-essential economic activity. They have long expressed concerns about discriminatory identity checks and disproportionate use of force by police and public transport security and xenophobic attitudes from the public.

No longer allowed to sell their wares, some street vendors have joined forces with a local clothing company to sew masks and aprons for health workers whose supplies are running low. They are using the initiative to raise awareness of the situation of manteros who have no way of earning their usual living, and to collect money for a food bank set up to provide essential supplies to members of their community whose already precarious income has been reduced to nothing."
Source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/02/barcelonas-show-solidarity-time-covid-19

• Rosehip Medic Collective

Portland Activists configure recipe for homemade hand sanitizer and distribute for free.
Source: http://www.rosehipmedics.org/pandemic-response/

 Rent Strikes, Rental Freezes,  Mortgage Freezes and Eviction bans around the world 

• Organizing for Housing Justice in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic

https://housingnotprofit.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Report_Covid19_EuropeanActionCoalition.pdf

This report looks at how the health, social and financial crisis ignited by the COVID-19 pandemic have affected housing conditions and the organizing for housing rights in the period of March-June 2020. While not being an exhaustive overview, this document reflects a great deal of both the abuses of power, worsening of housing conditions and the resistance organized by housing justice movements across the continent.

Source: European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City

• Covid-19 and housing struggles:

The (re)makings of austerity, disaster capitalism, and the no return to normal https://radicalhousingjournal.org/2020/covid-19-and-housing-struggles

ABSTRACT:
Seemingly overnight, the use value of housing as a life-nurturing, safe place is at the center of political discourse, policy-making, and new governmentalities. The right to suitable and secure shelter has shifted from the “radical” margins to the object of unprecedented public policy interventions worldwide. Writing collectively from the relative privilege of our (often precarious) homes, we sketch out a space to reflect on the centrality of housing and home to the Covid-19 crisis, to disentangle the key nexus between housing, the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, austerity, and the current pandemic, and connect current responses to longer-term trajectories of dispossession and disposability, bordering, ethno-nationalism, financialization, imperialism, capitalism, patriarchy, and racism. We argue that much is to be learned from collective organizing and mutual aid in the context of previous moments of disaster capitalism.

Source: The Radical Housing Journal

• COVID-19 Emergency Tenant Protections & Rent Strikes

https://antievictionmappingproject.github.io/covid-19-map/
A global map of Emergency Tenant Protections and Rental actions.

• LOS ANGELES

https://docs.google.com/document/d/165eYVkW13yzrES7q5ZZaWVFSLFYqYnP2RBzhyQSRIWM/edit?fbclid=IwAR2ZvOpp5keozR116hhabqqDNGwACISVBg_nuQ8CP3mrh9Bpf2H8fqicIwo
short link --->https://rb.gy/iikfdn Food no rent. A rent forgiveness guide for those who cannot afford to pay their rent during COVID-19.
Los Angeles Tenants Union

• OAKLAND

https://postnewsgroup.com/2020/05/07/tenants-of-one-of-oaklands-biggest-evictors-are-organizing
Tenants of one of Oakland's biggest evictors are organizing
Tenants who rent from Sullivan Management Company (SMC) East Bay, have founded the SMC Tenants Council, unifying to make collective demands including that the company cancel debt of back rent that’s owed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.berkeleyside.com/2020/05/08/oakland-tenants-go-on-strike-to-protest-high-rents-and-construction-during-the-covid-19-pandemic
About 250 Oakland tenants have announced a rent strike against Oakland landlords. Some renters allege their landlords are harassing them with construction and requests to enter their homes.

• MINNESOTA

https://minnesotareformer.com/2020/04/09/with-no-money-or-jobs-renters-refuse-to-pay/

• ITHACA

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ithaca-new-york-cancel-rent-debt_n_5eda836fc5b66811f775e3a4
Ithaca Could Be The First U.S. City To Move Forward On Canceling Rent

• FRANCE

https://www.loyersuspendu.org/
POUR UN MORATOIRE DES LOYERS, NOUS SUSPENDONS NOTRE LOYER ! / For a moratorium on rent, we suspend our rent!

• SPAIN

https://suspensionalquileres.org/?fbclid=IwAR3gB7NUyuHHojmqJXlA5rKRUeCwWTs3dRc8GKXJAVDRFnd-Rv3EXci7PpA
Somos miles de inquilinos e inquilinas a quienes esta crisis está dejando sin ingresos. No podemos pagar el alquiler de la casa donde vivimos o del comercio u oficina en la que trabajamos / We are thousands of rentors who are in this crisis that leaves us without income. We cannot pay the rent in the homes where we live, businesses or offices where we work.

• NYC

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/righttocounselnyc/pages/100/attachments/original/1585739362/RTCNYC.COVID19.4.pdf?1585739362&fbclid=IwAR2PXE7JnzMxffOglp4lVN97pezB8-ZfCqmBpxkhK6D-xlJ0IxqiHtN7-TU
Short link --->https://rb.gy/bcxnlg Going on rent strike in New York during COVID-19. Guide & resources.

https://actionnetwork.org/forms/mayday-cantpay
May Day: Can't Pay!: The Action Network

https://theintercept.com/2020/04/25/coronavirus-rent-strike-may/
With Millions Unable to Pay for Housing Next Month, Organizers Plan the Largest Rent Strike in Nearly a Century

• QUEBEC

http://libcom.org/library/why-how-go-rent-strike
A brief guide to rent strikes, first published by the Quebec site grevedesloyers.info, and republished by Montreal Counter-Info and It's Going Down. This guide was created for people in Quebec, but much of the information will be applicable elsewhere.

• AUSTRALIA

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/the-signal/housing-crisis/12101386
Hundreds of thousands of Australians were inching closer to eviction, until last night. A new six month moratorium will keep a roof over their heads for the time being, but there's no promise of direct rental relief.

• SCOTLAND

https://www.livingrent.org/covid_19_faqs
The Scottish Government has (finally) moved to ban all evictions following on from a successful campaign from Living Rent. The Scottish Government have promised that it will mean that no one is losing their home because of the pandemic. The legislation banning evictions will be in place for 6 months from April 1st (so at least until the end of September) and can be extended in 2 month blocks depending on the crisis. It applies to all tenants in Scotland in the private and social sectors.

• UK

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/hundreds-of-students-in-uk-sign-up-to-rent-strike
Hundreds of students in UK sign up to rent strike
Students protest about being trapped in accommodation due to coronavirus

• LONDON

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/rent-strike-student-coronavirus-lockdown-housing-crisis-a9493936.html
‘This is about survival’: The students and tenants going on rent strike during coronavirus lockdown

• BRISTOL

https://epigram.org.uk/2020/03/31/rent-strike-called-against-digs-amid-coronavirus-fears/
Digs tenants go on rent strike amid coronavirus financial fears

• GERMANY

https://www.bmgev.de/mietrecht/corona-mietzahlung
Corona und die Mietzahlung / Corina and rental payment
Am 1. April 2020 ist das Gesetz zur Abmilderung der Folgen der COVID-19-Pandemie im Zivil-, Insolvenz- und Strafverfahrensrecht in Kraft getreten. Ziel dieses Gesetzes ist es u.a. Mieter/innen, die infolge der Pandemie in Zahlungsschwierigkeiten geraten sind, vor einer Kündigung des Mietverhältnisses und damit vor dem Verlust ihrer Wohnung zu schützen. Nachstehend finden Sie die wichtigsten Informationen zu diesem Gesetz:

On April 1, 2020, the law to mitigate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in civil, bankruptcy and criminal procedure law came into force. The aim of this law is among others, to protect tenants who have encountered payment difficulties as a result of the pandemic from eviction. The document lists key information about the law.

• VANCOUVER

https://rentstrikevan.ca/
Rent Strike Vancouver. Keep Your Rent May 1st!

• TORONTO

https://twitter.com/KeepYourRent/status/1260615162337378305
Today tenants from Mississauga, Scarborough, and Parkdale visited the mansions of their landlords George Grossman (CEO, Pinedale Properties) and Daniel Drimmer (CEO, Starlight).
Tenants demanded no evictions and rent forgiveness for tenants unable to pay rent during #COVID19

https://www.blogto.com/real-estate-toronto/2020/05/toronto-tenants-staged-protests-outside-mansions-their-landlord-over-rent/

• NETHERLANDS

https://www.iamexpat.nl/housing/real-estate-news/government-rules-tenants-cannot-be-evicted-during-corona-crisis
The Minister for Housing in the Netherlands has come to an agreement with landlords that tenants should not be evicted due to problems arising from the coronavirus pandemic.

https://bondprecairewoonvormen.nl/2020/04/voorstel-voor-huurverlaging-standaardbrief/
Dutch and English-speaking BPW standard letter to apply for rent reduction.
" Given the precarious situation in which there is already a significant part of the tenants of living spaces. Assuming that this situation will deteriorate rather than improve in the coming period, Request the government as an emergency measure to allow a temporary rental stop for both the social sector and the free sector "

• Supports, Strikes, and Student Revolt: On Housing Struggles in the Netherlands

https://www.bakonline.org/prospections/supports-strikes-and-student-revolt-on-housing-struggles-in-the-netherlands/
Here to Support, Amsterdam University College Rent Strike, Bond Precaire Woonvormen

• Students renting a house from DUWO and Woonstichting De Key have started a rental strike.

https://bondprecairewoonvormen.nl/2020/06/studenten-duwo-en-de-key-starten-huurstaking-rent-strike-amsterdam
Students renting a home from DUWO, De Key and other housing associations are sounding the alarm. The pandemic exposes their precarious income and housing situation and threatens their right to housing.

• The corona crisis is also a housing crisis. The risk group: young people

https://www.vn.nl/coronacrisis-wooncrisis-jongeren

• AMSTERDAM

http://www.taak.me/activity/day-44-housing-the-home/
How much of your income can you set aside for your rent? What if, let’s say, a pandemic hits tomorrow and you have no source of income for the next half year, or longer? How would you handle things then?

• CHICAGO

https://rpcrt.org/housing-utilities/
The City of Chicago has mandated a 30-day moratorium on evictions due to coronavirus closures and loss of income. They are also temporarily suspending debt collection, ticketing, and towing practices to provide debt relief in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

• VENEZUELA

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/venezuela-announces-6-month-rent-suspension-guarantees-workers-wages-bans-lay-offs<br. Speaking on a live televised address, President Nicolás Maduro instructed that all commercial and residential rent, as well as all capital and loan interest payments, are to be suspended for six months.

• Rental & Mortgage Arrears - Guidance for Governments during COVID19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQo-yzjW7Nw&feature=emb_title&fbclid=IwAR323I1AnECA5fwTU6I5nCRPozPIC7qUV0TYGzIVxLVCr-XTsZAwaCNZYIU
Short link---> https://rb.gy/jkjf4q A message from Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing.

• UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing

http://unhousingrapp.org/press-room
COVID-19 Guidance Notes on protecting renters and mortgage payers, protecting those living in homelessness, and protecting residents of informal settlements

• Coronavirus Calls for an Emergency Rent Freeze and Eviction Moratorium

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/03/coronavirus-housing-security-rent-freeze-eviction
Author: Peter Gowan

• 15 Demands in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic

https://housingnotprofit.org/15-demands-in-the-face-of-the-covid-19-pandemic
Our experience as housing activists points out that:

RAISING RENTS
CEASING UTILITIES due to default
NEGLECTING PEOPLE FROM MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES PLACED IN DEPRIVED AREAS
LEAVING PERSONS AND FAMILIES ON THEIR OWN WITH HIGH HOUSING-RELATED DEBTS OR PRIVATE RENTS THAT THEY CANNOT PAY IN THE EVENT OF LOSING THEIR JOBS

will increase people’s vulnerability to the virus, putting the whole society at risk.

 Pandemic Protests

• Award-winning archaeologist gives detailed instructions on how to pull down Confederate obelisks as protesters topple racist statues in Birmingham and Nashville

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8376541/Archaeologist-gives-instructions-safely-pull-obelisks-George-Floyd-protests.html--->short link https://rb.gy/atzyb6
University of Alabama at Birmingham archeologist Sarah Parcak tweeted instructions on how to safely topple an obelisk. Parcak even offered a rough, hand-drawn schematic and references that 'there might be' an obelisk in Birmingham's downtown.

• Why Protest Tactics Spread Like Memes

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/style/viral-protest-videos.html
When items like umbrellas and leaf blowers are subverted into objects of resistance, they become very shareable.

• Interface, 12(1): Organizing amidst COVID-19: Sharing Stories of Struggle (2020)

https://monoskop.org/images/f/fb/Interface_12_1_Organizing_amidst_COVID-19_2020.pdf

• K-pop fans drown out #WhiteLivesMatter hashtag

https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/whitelivesmatter/?hl=en

• Socially distanced human chain to protest racism

https://www.dw.com/en/berliners-make-socially-distanced-human-chain-to-protest-racism/

• Everyday Borders, Everyday Resistance

https://roarmag.org/magazine/everyday-borders-everyday-resistance/
Under COVID-19 emergency rule, the EU border regime creeps further into our daily lives, calling for everyday resistance through solidarity and mutual aid
Author: Anna Papoutsi

• The New White House Fence Is Getting Covered In Protest Art

https://dcist.com/story/20/06/07/the-new-white-house-fence-is-getting-covered-in-protest-art

• D.C. Mayor Bowser has 'Black Lives Matter' painted on street leading to White House

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/d-c-mayor-bowser-has-black-lives-matter-painted-street-n1225746

• The power of crowds

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jun/02/the-power-of-crowds

• Tactics in a time of physical distancing: Examples from around the world

https://commonslibrary.org/tactics-in-a-time-of-physical-distancing-examples-from-around-the-world/

CONTENTS

1. Frameworks and tactic lists
2. Banners, Posters and Murals
3. Car Based Actions
4. Virtual Civil Disobedience, Gaming and Maps
5. Holograms, Projections & Skywriting
6. Digital Rallies, Strikes, Picket Lines and Forums
7. Bodies on the Line
8. Strikes – Workers and Renters
9. Objects Representing People (Aprons, Art Installations, Shoes)
10. Noise Making
    
    

• SERBIAN BALCONY PERFORMANCES

https://thetheatretimes.com/serbian-balcony-performances-in-times-of-covid-19-clapping-protesting-confrontation
HOW DID DIVERSE BALCONY PERFORMANCES EMERGE IN SERBIA DURING THE CORONAVIRUS EPIDEMIC AND HOW DID THEY BECOME A METAPHOR FOR A POLARIZED SOCIETY?

• Manif.app

https://www.manif.app/wp/about/
You want to support a manifestation or a protest but you really cannot join it (you are sick, you are far away, you are under lockdown due to a worldwide virus, …) : the Manif.app web site allows you to participate by placing your avatar on a map at the location of the manifestation and thus display your support. Your avatar is visible publicly on the map, as well as all the other avatars.<br

• 'Black Flag' protest at Rabin Square

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-over-a-thousand-israelis-brave-coronavirus-fears-to-protest-netanyahu-1.8781869
Two Thousand Israelis Brave Coronavirus Fears to Protest Assault on Democracy

• The global pandemic has spawned new forms of activism – and they’re flourishing

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/20/the-global-pandemic-has-spawned-new-forms-of-activism-and-theyre-flourishing
We’ve identified nearly 100 distinct methods of non-violent action that include physical, virtual and hybrid actions:

car caravans
cacerolazos
walkouts
mask-sewing
community mutual aid pods
crowdsourced emergency funds
scavenger hunts
live-streamed readings
balconies and rooftops performances
drone deliveries
digital rallies
food banks
reclaiming vacant housing
crowdsourced funds
mass donations of medical supplies
rent strikes
teach-ins
toolkits for civic action
tweetstorms

Authors: Erica Chenoweth, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Jeremy Pressman, Felipe G Santos and Jay Ulfelder

• SOS Moria

https://www.sosmoria.eu/
Appeal from European doctors: bring refugees on the Greek islands to safety.

• DZIEWUCHY BERLIN

https://dziewuchyberlin.wordpress.com/2020/04/09/solidarity-action-no-to-abortion-ban-in-poland/
In Solidarity to Polish Women! No to Abortion Ban!

• Hygiene Demos

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bpgx/anti-vaxxers-gun-nuts-and-q-anon-germanys-bizarre-anti-lockdown-protests-are-uniting-the-fringe-right-and-left
Anti-Vaxxers, Gun Nuts, and QAnon: Germany’s Bizarre Anti-Lockdown Protests Are Uniting the Fringe Right and Left

• Social movements in and beyond the COVID-19 crisis: sharing stories of struggles

https://www.interfacejournal.net/
We’re tired of hearing stories about the virus and the crisis that only feature governments and corporations, and where we only appear clapping or as corpses. So we’re asking activists around the world to share stories of what movements are doing where they are.

EUROPE>ASIA>AFRICA>AMERICAS>GLOBAL>

Themes

1. Movements already going on before the virus
2. Lessons learned from previous collective actions that inform how activists respond to the crisis
3. Civil society struggles to get states to take action
4. Campaigning to get the specific needs of particular groups / communities taken into account
5. Solidarity economy and mutual aid initiatives and their connections to other movements
6. Struggles developing within the crisis
7. Longer-term perspective: what might the crisis mean for movements and the possibility of a better world?
   
   

• COVID-19 list of prisoner actions

https://perilouschronicle.com/covid-19-list-of-prisoner-actions/
Scroll down to see our current list of prisoner actions that have occurred in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. The vast majority of these events involve prisoners acting in direct response to the epidemic, but we have also included events that occurred amidst the epidemic since we often do not know prisoners’ motivations.

• CITIZENS TAKE OVER EUROPE

https://citizenstakeover.eu/
On the 9th of May we reclaim an open space to discuss current problems and co-develop solutions from a political, social and personal perspective.

What are our concerns and our most urgent problems?

What is the current meaning of crisis and what solutions can citizens propose and implement?

How do we organize solidarity among Europeans and with the rest of the world?

• The Agitprop of the Pandemic

https://crimethinc.com/
Posters, Stickers, and Graffiti from around the World

• Rent Strike! Graphics Collection

https://justseeds.org/graphic/rent-strike-graphics-collection/

• Impressive May Day for PAME in Syntagma in the middle of quarantine [images + video]

https://www.efsyn.gr/ellada/koinonia/241426_entyposiaki-protomagia-gia-pame-sto-syntagma-en-meso-karantinas-eikones

 Environmental Racism

• How environmental racism is fuelling the coronavirus pandemic

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01453-y

Toxic living conditions have long inflated death rates. Scientists must learn to track these patterns of inequality.

Author: Harriet A. Washington
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01453-y

 Agribusiness and Sustainable Solutions 

• What are the causes of the coronavirus

https://cominsitu.wordpress.com/2020/03/22/what-are-the-causes-of-the-coronavirus/

A socialist biologist explains the tight links between new viruses, industrial food production, and the profitability of multinational corporations.

• Solidarity from Brandenburg farmers in times of corona

https://www.theleftberlin.com/post/solidarity-from-brandenburg-farmers-in-times-of-corona
Author: Julia Bar-Tal is an activist with AbL Brandenburg [AbL ist short for Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft, or working group for rural agriculture

• Halt destruction of nature or suffer even worse pandemics, say world’s top scientists

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/halt-destruction-nature-worse-pandemics-top-scientists

 Economic models, economy, discussions on economy 

• COVID-19 The Front Line: Visualizing the Occupations with the Highest COVID-19 Risk

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-front-line-visualizing-the-occupations-with-the-highest-covid-19-risk

• Life After COVID-19: Work. Democratize, Decommodify, Remediate

https://thewire.in/economy/covid-19-crisis-3000-researchers-600-universities-op-ed
In a joint op-ed, leading academics around the world say we need to heed the lessons of the coronavirus crisis and rewrite the rules of our economic systems in order to create a more democratic and sustainable society.

• The Jobs at Risk Index (JARI)

https://autonomy.work/portfolio/jari/
The COVID-19 virus is spreading across the UK population through close human contact (e.g. via breath and touching shared surfaces). Those workers with jobs that bring them into close contact with others and/or those who regularly come into contact with diseases or infections are most at risk.

• Tax Justice Network

https://www.taxjustice.net/2020/04/08/revealed-netherlands-blocking-eus-covid19-recovery-plan-has-cost-eu-countries-10bn-in-lost-corporate-tax-a-year/
Revealed: Netherlands, blocking EU’s Covid19 recovery plan, has cost EU countries $10bn in lost corporate tax a year

• Amsterdam to embrace 'doughnut' model to mend post-coronavirus economy

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/amsterdam-doughnut-model-mend-post-coronavirus-economy

• COVID-19 leads to massive labour income losses worldwide

https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_755875/lang--en/index.htm
A new ILO analysis of the labour market impact of COVID-19 reveals a “massive” drop in labour income and a fiscal stimulus gap that threatens to increase inequality between richer and poorer countries.
Global labour income is estimated to have declined by 10.7 per cent, or US$ 3.5 trillion, in the first three quarters of 2020, compared with the same period in 2019.

• ILO: As job losses escalate, nearly half of global workforce at risk of losing livelihoods

https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_743036/lang--en/index.htm
The continued sharp decline in working hours globally due to the COVID-19 outbreak means that 1.6 billion workers in the informal economy – that is nearly half of the global workforce – stand in immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed, warns the International Labour Organization

• Investing in Nature to Transform the Post COVID-19 Economy

https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/investing-nature-transform-post-covid-19-economy-10-point-action-plan-create-circular-bioeconomy-devoted-sustainable-wellbeing
A 10-point Action Plan to create a circular bioeconomy devoted to sustainable wellbeing

Aim at sustainable wellbeing
Invest in nature and biodiversity
Ensure an equitable distribution of prosperity
Rethink holistically land, food and health systems
Transform industrial sector
Reimagine cities through ecological lenses

 Universal Basic Income

• SPAIN

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-spain-universal-basic-income-europe-a9449336.html?fbclid=IwAR1_hKVxvt1qBWXigCbGh7nuEnJR8MEbc1DbgAEDsO6LObuGoXhI9R0VZLE
Coronavirus: Spain to become first country in Europe to roll out universal basic income

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/spain-rekindles-a-radical-idea-a-europe-wide-minimum-income
Spain rekindles a radical idea: a Europe-wide minimum income

• GERMANY

https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-begins-universal-basic-income-trial-three-years-2020-8
Germany is beginning a universal-basic-income trial with people getting $1,400 a month for 3 years

 Labor Issues, Global Strikes, Social justice in the time of Social Distancing

• From Fanon to ventilators: fighting for our right to breathe

https://roarmag.org/essays/from-fanon-to-ventilators-fighting-for-our-right-to-breathe/
To neoliberal states, the pandemic is a racialized security threat and a market opportunity. Our fight is for the right to breathe — in every sense.

• Coronavirus: Mapping excessive use of force by law enforcement

https://omegaresearchfoundation.org/covid.php

• COVID State Watch

https://twitter.com/COVIDStateWatch
Monitoring abuse of police powers and states of emergency during #Coronavirus #Covid19.Tag or DM to share info.

Coronavirus is both a genuine emergency and the perfect excuse for a government power grab. States across the world are expanding police powers and rushing through emergency laws.

• Stepping into the Moment: The Corona-Crisis

https://organizingupgrade.com/stepping-into-the-moment-the-corona-crisis/
Author: Harmony Goldberg with Grassroots Policy Project

• AS AMAZON, WALMART, AND OTHERS PROFIT AMID CORONAVIRUS CRISIS, THEIR ESSENTIAL WORKERS PLAN UNPRECEDENTED STRIKE

https://theintercept.com/2020/04/28/coronavirus-may-1-strike-sickout-amazon-target-whole-foods/

• Amazon workers hold wildcat strike demanding paid leave and safety measures

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/22/headlines/amazon_workers_hold_wildcat_strike_demanding_paid_leave_and_safety_measures

• COVID-19 Strike Wave Interactive Map

https://paydayreport.com/covid-19-strike-wave-interactive-map/
Payday Report has launched an interactive strike tracking map so that workers can follow the wave of strikes hitting the country. Each point contains a link to more information on the strikes occurring.
So far, we’ve identified over 35 wildcat strikes that happened in the last month alone. (Several larger strikes like at Instacart and Whole Foods happened in multiple cities). We suspect many strikes aren’t reporting at all for a variety of reasons and that the numbers are higher than we can track.

• Social Justice in a time of Social Distancing, Kenneth Bailey and Lori Lobenstine

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53c7166ee4b0e7db2be69480/t/5e6900b6b689bb5bc5f5d474/1583939767600/Social+Justice+in+a+Time+of+Social+Distancing.pdf ---->https://rb.gy/bfn40b

• International Week of Anti-Imperialist Struggle

https://antiimperialistweek.org/en/about/
The International Week of Anti-Imperialist Struggle emerges from people's movements, organizations, political organizations, and networks from across the globe that recognized that the peoples of the world must unite to confront our common enemies.
International Peoples’ Assembly / La Via Campesina Internacional / Peoples Dispatch / Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research / World March of Women and more...

• Pandemic Dystopias: Biopolitical Emergency and Social Resistance

https://voidnetwork.gr/2020/04/04/pandemic-dystopias-biopolitical-emergency-and-social-resistance/
Authors: George Sotiropoulos & Gene Ray

• No return to normal: for a post-pandemic liberation

https://roarmag.org/essays/no-return-to-normal-for-a-post-pandemic-liberation
Today, new forms of solidarity, mutual aid, and common struggle are emerging in the pandemic. How will they shape tomorrow’s struggles for a post-capitalist world?
Author: Max Haiven

• The pandemic as political trial: the case for a global commons

https://roarmag.org/essays/dardot-laval-corona-pandemic/
The pandemic has demonstrated the bankruptcy of national sovereignty — the major threats to humanity are global in character, so mutual aid, cooperation and solidarity must be too.

• In Light of the Global Pandemic, Focus Attention on the People

https://www.thetricontinental.org/declaration-covid19/

1. Immediate suspension of all work, except essential medical and logistical personnel and those required to produce and distribute food and necessities, without any loss of wages.
2. Health, food supply, and public safety must be maintained in an organised manner.
3. Schools must all be suspended.
4. Immediate socialization of hospitals and medical centres so that they do not worry about the profit motive as the crisis unfolds.
5. Immediate nationalization of pharmaceutical companies, and immediate international cooperation amongst them to find a vaccine and easier testing devices.
6. Immediate testing of all people.
7. Immediate speed-up of production for materials necessary to deal with the crisis (testing kits, masks, respirators).
8. Immediate closure of global financial markets.
9. Immediate gathering of the finances to prevent the bankruptcy of governments.
10. Immediate cancellation of all non-corporate debt.
11. Immediate end to all rent and mortgage payments, as well as an end to evictions.
12. Immediate absorption of all utility payments by the State.
13. Immediate end to the unilateral, criminal sanctions regimes and economic blockades that impact countries such as Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela and prevent them from importing necessary medical supplies.
14. Urgent support for the peasantry to increase the production of healthy food and supply it to the government for direct distribution.
15. Suspension of the dollar as an international currency.
16. Ensure a universal minimum income in every country.
    
    

Source: International Assembly of the Peoples and Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.

• How to Beat Coronavirus Capitalism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lxwLHRKaB0&fbclid=IwAR0lLoRMP6gJKfahjVo0GUOHMCt8Y_ZprlW3EePAiQL5eRNonbhizMgcIJM
short link---->https://rb.gy/4hzxbj
An online teach-in with Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, with a musical performance by Lia Rose.

• "Herd Immunity" is Epidemiological Neoliberalism

https://thequarantimes.wordpress.com/2020/03/19/herd-immunity-is-epidemiological-neoliberalism/
Author: Isabel Frey

 Contemporary Urbanism

• Transscalar Architecture of COVID-19

https://youtu.be/dkZaXW0G3EE
The Transscalar Architecture of COVID-19 xplores the coronavirus pandemic through a montage of images of spaces of different scales – from microscopic images of the virus to maps showing its impact on global travel patterns and pollution levels.

It documents dramatic transformations of the built environment, including conference centres being converted into temporary hospitals and empty city streets being reclaimed by wildlife, and explores how the pandemic is affecting different people in different economic situations around the world.

"[The film] interrogates territorial divides, the condition of migration and the making of refugeeness, old and new geometries of colonialism, tax justice, access to healthcare, racism and xenophobia, warfare rhetoric, surveillance, urban infrastructures, public spaces, and borders. But also; entanglement, cooperation, inventiveness, engagement, and emerging forms of togetherness."

• Quarantinology

http://quarantinology.com/
What will cities look like in the aftermath of Covid-19? What does the stress test of mass quarantine reveal about emerging dynamics in contemporary urbanism, from the platformization of public space to the new communalism of the precariat? Quarantinology is one answer to this question: a catalog of logistical interventions that explores the history of the quarantined city and speculates about its future.

• Social Distancing into the Food Market

https://www.dezeen.com/2020/04/03/shift-architecture-urbanism-designs-social-distancing-into-the-food-market/
Hyperlocal Micro Markets is a concept for a network of public markets, where customers can buy fruit and vegetables, dairy products, and meat and fish, without risking spread of coronavirus.

• Sensor taps and no door handles

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/04/sensor-taps-door-handles-covid-19-rethink-public-toilets-bathroom-design
Public health experts, designers and architects say the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed fundamental flaws in the design of public toilets that risk spreading a second wave of coronavirus, and possibly even new pandemics.

• Vilnius Airport becomes drive-in cinema as virus halts flights

https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1169330/vilnius-airport-becomes-drive-in-cinema-as-virus-halts-flights

• Drive-In Concerts Are Now a Thing in Denmark

https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/05/drive-in-concerts-coronavirus-denmark/
A stage was erected on the city’s outskirts so that singer-songwriter Mads Langer could perform to an audience in-person instead of via livestream (via Stereogum). From inside their socially-distanced cars, attendees could turn their FM dials to the designated radio station to hear his set live on air, hence experiencing a concert the way you would a drive-in movie.

• The first drive rave has been held in Germany

https://mixmag.net/read/worlds-first-drive-in-rave-germany-news

• Rear Windowflick: Berlin's DIY film screenings

https://www.theguardian.com/film/gallery/2020/may/07/windowflick-berlin-screenings-in-pictures
The Windowflicks project is hosting film screenings in Berlin’s courtyards, as cinemas are closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The organisers are currently offering these screenings for free as a symbol of solidarity and support for the many endangered arthouse cinemas in Berlin

• Future Air Travel: Four-Hour Process, Self Check-In, Disinfection, Immunity Passes

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2020/05/10/future-air-travel-four-hour-process-self-check-in-disinfection-immunity-passes ------>https://rb.gy/3d67dg

• Madrid's Teatro Real reopens with a Socially Distanced Opera https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/madrids-teatro-real-reopens-with-socially-distanced-opera

 Big Brother 3.0, Outbreak Science, Coronavirus, Surveillance and Self-Tracking 

• Apple, Google Bring Covid-19 Contact-Tracing to 3 Billion People

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-10/apple-google-bring-covid-19-contact-tracing-to-3-billion-people

• UK government using confidential patient data in coronavirus response

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-using-confidential-patient-data-in-coronavirus-response

• How the Coronavirus Is Driving New Surveillance Programs Around the World

https://onezero.medium.com/the-pandemic-is-a-trojan-horse-for-surveillance-programs-around-the-world-887fa6f12ec9 ---->https://rb.gy/b3sne3
Article describes programs by 28 countries around the world

• The computer algorithm that was among the first to detect the coronavirus outbreak

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-outbreak-computer-algorithm-artificial-intelligence/
On New Year's Eve, a small company in Canada was among the first to raise the alarm about an infectious disease outbreak. Its computer algorithm calculated where the virus might spread next.

 Earth 1 - Humans 0 

• 70,000 Endangered Sea Turtles Lay Eggs on Empty Beaches During Quarantine

https://returntonow.net/2020/04/08/70000-endangered-sea-turtles-lay-eggs-on-empty-beaches-during-quarantine/

• Himalayas seen for first time in decades from 125 miles away after pollution drop

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/himalayas-mountain-range-asia-india-pollution-coronavirus-lockdown-a9456446.html

• Disbelief in big cities as air pollution falls

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/11/positively-alpine-disbelief-air-pollution-falls-lockdown-coronavirus

 The 'usual suspects' philosophers response

• Franco 'Bifo' Berardi, Beyond the Breakdown - Three Meditations on a Possible Aftermath

https://transversal.at/transversal/0420/berardi/en
We are passing the threshold that leads beyond the cycle of labor–money–consumption. When, one day, the body comes out from the confinement of quarantine, the problem will not be rebalancing the relation between time, work, and money, rebalancing debt and repayment. [...] We face two political alternatives: either a techno-totalitarian system that will relaunch the capitalist economy by means of violence, or the liberation of human activity from capitalist abstraction and the creation of a molecular society based on usefulness. [...] What if the overload of connection breaks the spell? When the pandemic finally dissipates (assuming that it will), it’s possible that a new psychological identification will have imposed itself: online equals sickness. We also have to imagine and create a movement of caressing that will compel young people to turn off their connective screens as reminders of a lonely and fearful time.

• Bruno Latour, La crise sanitaire incite à se préparer à la mutation climatique (in French;
  the COVID-19 crisis anticipating the urgency of action against the climate catastrophe)
  

https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2020/03/25/la-crise-sanitaire-incite-a-se-preparer-a-la-mutation-climatique_6034312_3232.html

• Giorgio Agamben: Reflections on the plague

https://enoughisenough14.org/2020/04/07/giorgio-agamben-reflections-on-the-plague/

• Alain Badiou, On the epidemic situation

("we know that the world market, combined with the existence of vast under-medicalised zones and the lack of global discipline when it comes to the necessary vaccinations, inevitably produces serious and devastating epidemics [...] We will also need to pass through a stringent critique of every perspective according to which phenomena like epidemics can work by themselves in the direction of something that is politically innovative".)
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4608-on-the-epidemic-situation

• Coronavirus and Philosophers
  

Helpful overview page by the European Journal of Psychoanalysis with text excerpts by Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy, Roberto Esposito, Sergio Benvenuto, Divya Dwivedi and Shaj Mohan and others on epidemics and the Corona crisis:
http://www.journal-psychoanalysis.eu/coronavirus-and-philosophers/

• Giorgio Agamben - Clarifications
  

The problem is not to give opinions on the gravity of the disease, but to ask about the ethical and political consequences of the epidemic. The first thing that the wave of panic that has paralyzed the country obviously shows is that our society no longer believes in anything but bare life.
https://itself.blog/2020/03/17/giorgio-agamben-clarifications

• Benjamin Bratton, 18 Lessons from Quarantine Urbanism
  

Over these months we are witnessing the largest experiment in comparative governance we are likely to see in our lifetimes. The virus is the control variable. [...] The way we define, interpret, discuss, deploy, and resist “surveillance” has shifted decisively. [...] Populism despises experts and expertise, but right now people desire competence. At this moment, dry, prepared, trustworthy, available, adaptable, responsive technocratic foresight and effectiveness seem like the most idealistic politics imaginable. Yet, the human ability to bend facts to favored narratives remains incredible. The global contagion and the varied responses by different societies have exposed ideologies and traditions as ineffective, fraudulent, and suicidal.
https://strelkamag.com/en/article/18-lessons-from-quarantine-urbanism

 Reading Lists

• BLACK FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON COVID-19: A READING LIST
  

https://www.blackwomenradicals.com/blog-feed/black-feminist-perspectives-on-covid-19-a-reading-list ---->https://rb.gy/p4hdsu

• Reading list on political, social, and ecological questions regarding COVID-19 and it's effects
  

https://yourpart.eu/p/QuarantineSchool_COVID19

• The Politics of COVID-19 - reading list by The Syllabus:
  

https://the-syllabus.com/politics-of-covid19-readings-part3/

• Sopa de Wuhan

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tShaH2j5A_9n9cWl6mhxtaHiGsJSBo5k/view?fbclid=IwAR1FlwBQZ9f4-pmrcpLTef0rGMpgFnjIMLZQGx-gOeRPBEvz7oIavMyhwUY ---->https://rb.gy/w1uykd
Pensamiento contemporáneo en tiempos de pandemia

 Other Unsorted Missives

• Progressive Geographies

Several pieces by geographers, sociologists and philosophers – presented without commentary.
https://progressivegeographies.com/resources/geographers-sociologists-philosophers-etc-on-covid-19/?fbclid=IwAR3SFY8sIPCwi2e44GeWodhtAoEk8EBhlQ-YMTtoLAfvVsoiItCOJQHxuQk ---->https://rb.gy/stw0ra

• The Loser's Conspiracy

https://www.artforum.com/slant/paul-b-preciado-on-life-after-covid-19-82586
I GOT SICK IN PARIS on Wednesday, March 11, before the French government ordered the confinement of the population, and when I got up on March 19, a bit more than a week later, the world had changed.
Author: Paul Preciado

• Interview_with_Virologist_Marion_Koopmans Interview with leading Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans from Erasmus University

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Interview_with_Virologist_Marion_Koopmans
* one of the six EU coronavirus crisis advisors, on urgent and common questions around COVID19. Also explains the Dutch approach to dealing with the virus much better than the Dutch government did:

• unofficial WdKA translation from Dutch. Also available as a PDF: https://hrnl.sharepoint.com/sites/WDK-Thegreatdeceleration/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?FolderCTID=0x0120000822C28B4285F94EB190B46B2979D631&id=%2Fsites%2FWDK%2DThegreatdeceleration%2FShared%20Documents%2FGeneral%2Finterview%5Fmarion%5Fkoopmans%2Epdf&parent=%2Fsites%2FWDK%2DThegreatdeceleration%2FShared%20Documents%2FGeneral
  

• Mike Davis on Coronavirus politics

https://www.thedigradio.com/podcast/mike-davis-on-coronavirus-politics
(podcast)

• Mike Davis, Who Gets Forgotten in a Pandemic

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/mike-davis-covid-19-essay/

• KPFK Public Radio podcasts on Coronavirus

https://archive.kpfk.org/index_one.php?shokey=bts_friday
with Mike Davis, Robert Brenner, Alan Minsky, Linda Farthing, Ansar Fayyazzuddin

• We're not going back to normal

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months
Social distancing is here to stay for much more than a few weeks. It will upend our way of life, in some ways forever.

Author: Gideon Lichfield, editor-in-chief MIT Technology Review

• Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID19 mortality and healthcare demand

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf ----->https://rb.gy/3lanir
Paper written by epidemiologists in collaboration with WHO; predicts that lockdown and social distancing will continue "potentially 18 months or more":

"[...] suppression will minimally require a combination of social distancing of the entire population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their family members. This may need to be supplemented by school and university closures, though it should be recognised that such closures may have negative impacts on health systems due to increased absenteeism. The major challenge of suppression is that this type of intensive intervention package – or something equivalently effective at reducing transmission – will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more) – given that we predict that transmission will quickly rebound if interventions are relaxed. We show that intermittent social distancing – triggered by trends in disease surveillance – may allow interventions to be relaxed temporarily in relative short time windows, but measures will need to be reintroduced if or when case numbers rebound."

• Jonas Staal, Coronavirus Propagations

https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/coronavirus-propagations-by-jonas-staal/9671

• Yuval Noah Harari: The world after coronavirus

https://amp-ft-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75 ----->https://rb.gy/x5gkeg
"Many short-term emergency measures will become a fixture of life.
That is the nature of emergencies. They fast-forward historical processes. [...]
Under-the-skin surveillance [...]
- The emergency pudding [...]
- The soap police [...]
The images accompanying this article are taken from webcams overlooking the deserted streets of Italy, found and manipulated by Graziano Panfili, a photographer living under lockdown"

• Ian Alan Paul, The Corona Reboot

https://www.ianalanpaul.com/the-corona-reboot/

• Abdullah Shihipar, Coronavirus and the Isolation Paradox

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/opinion/coronavirus-social-distancing.html

• Ian Buruma, The Virus of Fear

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/coronavirus-fear-increases-violence-potential-by-ian-buruma-2020-03

• Raoul Vaneigem, Coronavirus

http://www.notbored.org/coronavirus.pdf
(Vaneigem was a key member of the Situationist International in the 1960s)
"Our present isn’t the confinement that survival imposes on us; it is the opening to all possibilities. It is due to panic that the oligarchic State is forced to adopt measures that even yesterday it decreed were impossible. It is to the call of life and the earth to be restored that we want to respond. Quarantine is good for reflection. Confinement doesn’t abolish the presence of the street; it reinvents it."

• Keep calm and put on some flannel. Chelsea Steiner, March 15 2020

https://www.themarysue.com/in-this-time-of-panic-we-look-to-generation-x-for-inspiration/
In This Time of Panic, We Look to Generation X for Inspiration

• Bellen met het museum

https://www.trouw.nl/religie-filosofie/nieuwe-expo-in-gesloten-museum-dan-maar-bellen-voor-een-voorproefje-wilt-u-een-wonder-meemaken~bd42bb42 ----->https://rb.gy/faus9b

Racism towards Asians during Coronavirus

 Coronavirus: What's spreading faster than COVID-19

 Spit on, yelled at, attacked: Chinese Americans fear for their safety

 Coronavirus, racism and solidarity, before and after Italy's lockdown – video 

 Sinophobia Tracker during CoronaVirus/ Sinophobia Tracker during CoronaVirus 

This site is an effort to archive and document the information on Sinophobia, its spill-over effects, and on people's efforts to counter such trends worldwide during the CoronaVirus (2019-nCoV or COVID-19) outbreak for future alarms against racism and xenophobia. 本网站致力于记录和存档在冠状病毒（2019-nCoV或COVID-19）爆发期间有关排华/恐华情绪以及外溢影响的信息，也包括人们如何应对的努力。

 Mai Ling's collection of news articles on racism towards East Asians during Coronavirus 

A Viennese association as well as an artist collective, contextualizing and fostering contemporary Asian art and culture with a focus on FLINT (Female, lesbian, intersexual, transgender)</small

 Chinese virus spreader’: after coronavirus, Australia has an anti-Asian racism outbreak to deal with  

A rise in racial abuse linked to Covid-19 highlights a gap in human rights legislation: there is no federal law punishing racist acts as a crime. With pressure growing for a national campaign, there are hopes that a growing diaspora and new generation will have the confidence to speak out

Carework Curves

Because having guide"lines" (linearity) is not flexible enough for this moment

 Synchronous and Asynchronous Meetings

• It seems important, from what I’ve been hearing across the board, for students (and teachers) to feel moments of group connection in synchronous calls. You could think of starting your sessions with a group check-in of some sort and then structure the rest of their guidance as you see fit, according to the hours you have left.
  
  
• Whenever possible, see that activities can be followed asynchronously, without students having to be present all at the same time (this works for P1 or P2, for example, maybe not so much for graduation supervision).
  
  
• Synchronous meetings tend to be good for taking stock, in a group chat, of everyone’s needs and for providing the relief many (not all) of us get from connection. Also, for one-on-one or cell-type tutorial sessions. We cannot, in these times, make synchronous meetings mandatory. Be available for these kind of meetings, but do not force students to go.
  
  
• Cell-type tutorials (where you are seeing a small group of students at a time) might also be a useful way to budget your time. When I’ve tried this format, students seem to appreciate the connectedness. It also gives you, as tutor, some leeway: your tutorial day becomes shorter, and in the call itself, if you encourage students to do peer-to-peer review, you don’t have to be talking/guiding all the time.
  
  
• As we have already seen in the SP Study Group call, asking participants in synchronous activities to keep a joint pad of notes on each other’s conversations is also a nice way to engage with possibilities of seeing each other online. Again, this cannot be made mandatory, but if we lead by example, then they might be encouraged to follow suit.
  
  

 Personal and Collective Needs

• Be sensitive and flexible to student needs. Schoolwork may not be their first priority. They may be ill or taking care/worry about loved ones who are ill. Isolation may be aggravating or causing mental health issues. “Home” is not synonymous to a safe and welcoming environment. They may not have the best resources (hardware, software, internet connection, physical space) at hand to do their work. Now more than ever, there are extenuating circumstances that may make concentration and precise scheduling difficult.
  
  
• Care is vital. Now is the time to perform emotional labor to the best of our abilities. Reassurance, empathy, encouragement, patience. Interfacing with a real human who seems to care. We are receiving so many impersonal communications, all of them serious and full of instructions to be followed to the letter. It’s overwhelming, even frightening. We talked about courage in the face of vulnerability in P1 actually. Now is time, I guess, to embody what we teach. Or try to, at least, however imperfectly.
  
  
• Be attentive to each other's needs as well. Check in with your teacher team colleagues, if you can make the space for it. We are all feeling a great many things in unison, sometimes even in common. Now more than ever, we are connected. Ask your colleagues what they need, express your own needs as well. If needs are not explicit, it is difficult for them to be met.
  
  
• We are finite creatures, with limits to what we can handle (in isolation). It’s ok to slow down, if we need it. Those who are able must, in this moment of extenuating circumstances, step up for those who are not able. And understand that when we cannot be there, someone else must bear a heavier weight. Solutions should be found together, in reciprocity, to collectivize and "deprivatize" (as Sami likes to say) the load.

Gossip Diary

A daily backdrop, parenthetical information

 March 14, 2020

• International students living in the NL booking emergency, same-day flights to head home before borders close in their countries/cities. Know of students in Rotterdam who booked flights today, from Canada, US, Mexico, UAE, Peru. They are going home to be with their families, take care of parents/grandparents who would have been alone during lockdown.
  
• Biggest question now for these students is how are the teachers going to deal with different time zones, if they are to follow classes from their home countries. Other worries: If they resume classes and there are no flights to return... or if quarantines persist in their home countries after March 31.
  
• Utrecht University cancels everything until April 20! Most schools and cultural institutions in NL only closed until March 31.
  
• Taken from their website on 13-03-2020: Face-to-face education/exams (on campus) cancelled until Monday April 20th and University Libraries closed
  

 March 15, 2020

• Students from Dutch school that are doing exchanges or internships internationally are being asked to come home. They are being told that there is the possibility of all countries closing their borders. Schools are sending official communications, even offering to help students book their tickets immediately.
• It rained eggplants in Iran. Seriously.
• All coffeeshops (places to buy weed, not coffee) are closed in the NL until April 6. Hope everyone is stocked up.

 March 16, 2020  

• Coffeeshops are open again.
• Minister of Employement of NL tells ZZP-ers that they have "chosen" their situations and fired themselves, so these are the consequences (paraphrasing here)
• People are saying borders will be closed in NL tonight
• The whole island of Luzon is on lockdown. It is the largest island of the Philippine Archipelago with a population of 48 million people, slightly more populous than the entire country of Spain (46 million people). The capital city, Metro Manila, is on this island.

 March 17, 2020

• Snippets from today's phone calls/video conferences...
  
  

• Peak of coronavirus will reach after 50 days confinement, this situation might last up to 3 months
• IN HK and AUS: 2 week recess is pretty standard. in some schools they are testing things out in 2 weeks and then 2 week recess to recalibrate. You can do independent meetings with your students but this doesn't represent your department
• Teachers more excited about the possibilities of this crisis than students
• lots of superstar teachers wanting to do zoom conferences, they're aight, but it's a little bit youtube master class, people not really thinking about students and what they need

CUHK went online 6 weeks ago because they have been doing e-learning training for years and years, so they were prepared... sympathetic towards messy situations on the way, political situation for last few years has built muscle memory for unstable situations

• Trying to do one-to-one temporal migration of classes to online world (3 hour live lecture = 3 hour zoom lecture).... this doesn't work, shorten your temporal frameworks

Panopto for video recording [lower file size than using desktop software such as quicktime, photobooth] you can download your own videos, zoom also... what about file size? is it manageable

• Zoom only host or co-host can record video, you can record onto the cloud or onto your computer, file is mp4, co-host is useful for large settings, if you have TAs
• give little assignments to do during a class, less possibility for spontaneity in large classes online, use breakout rooms function (only with host privileges)... you can schedule group work breakout rooms, assign specific times for it
• "Payment problems due to coronavirus? The Tax and Customs Administration takes measures to help entrepreneurs (including self-employed persons)" See on https://www.belastingdienst.nl/ coronavirus tab
• BTW hope you did some clapping at 8PM today?!! Clapping? Missed the memo, what for? :) forgot the memo as I was busy with clapping (for all the health care workers) Exciting Clapping kaomoji---->>>(* ﾟ∀ﾟ)ﾉｼ
• At UCLA, some colleagues are making their seminars public now that they've turned to online teaching
• People in the gig economy are going to be hard hit
• We have a new fb challenge with some friends: calling our kids co-workers in an anecdote of the day
• Activist organizers from UK focused on mutual aid for high-risk communities (from a zoom conference organized by TWT The World Transformed https://www.facebook.com/TWTNow):

- Trying not to replicate work that already exists. We have 2 teams: coordination + dispatch (distribution) of goods and services.
- How to organize facebook groups where multiple requests for assistance are getting lost due to high page activity, they have an offline spreadsheet type thing
- Transcript from TWT discussion:[11]

• You can still go out for runs in Italy. Apparently, this is not possible in France. So people in Italy are discovering their hidden marathon runner.

 March 18, 2020

• This is SERIOUS: ALL of my and other people’s post’s regarding relief and help and info regarding the global crisis has been DELETD by FB.... including emotional updates, creative memes and personal insights, and newspaper articles!!! Please do not stop disseminating information via other platforms. Stay strong and safe and in COMMUNICATION!!
• Teacher outside of the NL: Just wanted to post on here to say: I’m going to be giving my students an additional week of spring break in order for them to get settled at home, focus on the mental, emotional and spiritual health, because I do NOT know what their home situation will be like. You have students who come from marginalized communities, that are differently abled and/or are STILL in the process of packing up their lives. I cannot know for sure, but I imagine that they are experiencing a tremendous amount of fear, stress and overall trauma.
• Friend: We are using microsoft teams at the rietveld, it's patchy, keeps collapsing, due to overload

 March 19, 2020

• one hospital in Poland got wrong protective gears for their medics, the overalls turned out to be those that are used by the construction workers
• Teacher in Toronto: Quick note to those moving classes online & what I learned today. Rocky initial start with first 1 hour class, then Q& A was fine. Straightforward.2 hour class following, after the questions, people just wanted to stay and chat. People wanted connection, as most were locked down, not going out, going stir crazy, close quarters with family or roomies. People wanted to chat online & jump in occasionally on mic or video and just have some normal. I ended up telling stories. Funny stories (the cat attack between dinner & desert & ensuing hospital mayhem). The story of my gran I posted the other day. Had us discussing family stories. A funny story from my daughter currently now on a Pacific island for the duration. That led to talk of so many loved ones and friends caught overseas. Students told stories, really funny life-in-2020 stories. We shared live vid of our pets. Posted links to uplifting content we were seeing online. Talked about the final digital project - Family resilience stories from our elders, the value of art, music, escapism, and fantasy in a time of lockdown, games based on lockdowns...My take-away - I'm switching to full chat / hang-out for all of our remaining windows. Let's be together for the 1 to 2 hours - talk, about course stuff, life stuff, laugh and weigh in. Be human. Be present. If digitally.
• Message from Teams: We're sorry—we've run into an issue. Try again. If that doesn't work, try signing out and back in.----->>>hahahahaha. i h8 microsoft sry personal struggs
• Spoke with SPIN (environmental action group) students, they mentioned that contact with teachers was vital for them to stay positive, and get energy to continue some sort of activity during this period, we have semi-cancelled a workshop with them in april but it's not really cancelled, it's just shifted into a different format wherein we will work with them to think of how an environmental group can continue functioning in the new coronaworld order

 March 20, 2020

• Friend from Berlin: After Merkel's speech pushing for social distancing, everything has closed down. There is a marked increase in police presence on Sonnenallee. The food stores are enforcing social distancing. In the supermarket closest to him, there are security guards doing crowd control. They divide separate people into a red and yellow line, controlling how many people get into the store. There is a long line. As in passport control, you have to stand behind a yellow line at the cashier until it is your turn to pay. You don't give the cashier money, but put it in a box. The cashier recieves the box, then gives change. The whole environment is incredibly tense. He feels bad about the cashiers. He knows every one of them and has known them for years.
• No local COVID-19 cases reported in China for two straight days, three months after virus spread began
• In iran people celebrating new year in quarantine. Happy new year. (it is also the first day of spring).
• Today I got extremely tired, demotivated, sad, anxious, stressed. The only thing keeping me going were thank yous. Thank you for the thank yous.
• #MochaUsonIsOverParty is #1 hashtag on PH Twitter and #2 in the world... down with fascist fake news peddling trolls

 March 21, 2020

• Last night the recommendations for quarantine from the WHO.
  

1. Eat healthy
   
2. Limit alcohol intake
   
3. Try to get plenty of rest
   
4. Do not smoke
   
5. Do not sit for long periods of time in one place. Try to get up every 30 minutes and walk around for at least 9 minutes.
   
6. Adults get at least 30 minutes of exercise each day. Children 60 minutes. Try to dance, or do one of the online yoga courses. Anything to keep moving.
   
7. Try not to constantly monitor the news feeds. Check-in with a reputable source, twice daily.

• Heard people were out en masse in the parks, since today sunny day.
  
• They closed the trailer campsite in Hoek van Holland, beach closed at 17h

 March 22, 2020

• Overheard: The term “mutual aid” basically just means when people band together to meet immediate survival needs, usually because of a shared understanding that the systems in place aren’t coming to meet them, or certainly not fast enough, if at all, and that we can do it together right now.
• Volg instructies Rijksoverheidop: houd 1,5 meter afstand! Bent ui ziek of verkouden? Blifj thuis. Bescherm uzelf un de mensen omu heen. Samen tegen Corona. Keep your distance to others.

 March 23, 2020

• All events/gatherings are prohibited till June 1st. Those who won't follow these rules will be fined. This could be with a maximum of €400 per person.
• If one of the family members has a fever, the whole family must stay in.
• Go alone to the supermarket for groceries
• Hairdressers and nail salons will be closed
• If you have visitors at home, the maximum should be 3 persons. Keep 1,5 meters distance.
• Children are allowed to play outside.
• Prime minister of NL had to make announcement about the crowded beaches and parks last weekend. Am not sure if he said people were being Undutch or Asocial (or does he say Anti-Social). Funny how the thinks the national identity is a paragon of care and consideration.

 March 27, 2020

• Needed to take a break from this pad, for a few days, as screen life increases. Starting to dissociate a bit from my own experience, due to seeing myself on screens all day. As if things are not happening to me but to someone else. I hesistate to say this is happening because this is a traumatic experience as I live in relative comfort, in comparison to other parts of the world and other situations. It is a stress response indicative of a self-defense mechanism that comes from trauma, perhaps better said. Though it's impossible not to think of this whole situation as a traumatic incident in the history of human sociality. If there is a history of human sociality, as opposed to just history of humans.
• At some point this week, all social gatherings were postponed until June 1st. And all national examinations at high school level this year were canceled.

 March 28, 2020

• NSync and Backstreet Boys manager Lou Pearlman flew blimps (rented them out for people to fly them at concert) and Ponzi scheme maker. And took all of NSync and Backstreets Boys' fortune. He died in 2016 in federal custody.
• Just found out that FKA Twigs and Robert Pattinson broke up.
• It's the weekend, catching up on celebrity news because need a break.
• Comrade Britney Spears called for a general strike on social media.
• Madonna made a video from her bathtub surrounded by rose petals, calling COVID 19 the great equalizer because it doesn't care how famous you are.

 April 1, 2020

• National Polish TV aka TVP (recently received 2 milliards Zloty from the PL GOV) premiered their first primary school TV channel. The bigger objective for this gesture is to give equal chances to those kids who have no Internet connection at home, one computer to share with other sibblings and etc. Great, right! The programmes have been launched yesterday (no this wasn't 1st of April joke) and turned out to be a complete disaster! The so called "teachers" can't speak proper Polish, stumble over their words, present bollocks(!) information that has nothing to do with actual knowldge. E.g. in maths class one person mixes the diameter with circuit, another speaks about the even numbers "11 is an even number because it has two ones"...as in 1 and 1....WTF. There's also an art history class for 7th graders (12 yrs olds) the subject is "expressionism" which according to the "teacher" is another just "style" in art (not a movement) after realism and before impressionism(!) ...btw some artist's names that are being mentioned: Courbet and Eduardo Monet LOL. Aaaahhhh and Vincent van Gogh's most famous painting is "The night with dancing stars". Dancing WHAT?????!!!!! Excuse me! Would love to see this one, one day....!......PS> Some people say that after the recent grant national teachers' strikes, this might be an intentional move to redicule Polish teachers in general. After all, you can sell anything to the uninformed plebes.
  
• The sick person that rules country of Poland from the back sit (Kaczynski, who BTW is only a regular politician and does not hold any official governmental position, except being the chairman of PiS aka Law and Justice) decided that the presidential elections planned for 10th of May will still take place, no matter the pandemic and the thousands of people being quarantined at homes. For years he hasn't seen any need for introducing the correspondencial elections and now he's trying to change the law within a few weeks. People say, it might be way easier, and cheaper for the country, to send him text messages on the day of the elections. I'll try that, great idea!
  
  

 April 2, 2020

• In the Philippines, President Duterte tells police they can go ahead and shoot quarantine violators. On a nationally televised press conference. Happened yesterday. My dad sent me a picture of the TV set with Duterte on it, ticker read the headline below. Happy belated April Fool's. This is not a joke. Actually, DU30 is a total joke...
  
• Currently thinking about the graduation show: the fabricated object must also become a published object, in that the documentation of any material research process will have to be documented and made public in different ways. At least for now we know this is certain for the research supervision process. Still unsure of what will happen to the graduation show itself. Students are anxious about this. So are teachers, actually.
  
• Albert Heijn online shopping deliveries are impossible. Jumbo deliveries are more workable, but you need to log on early in the morning to get delivery times.
  
• Ikea still delivers to your home (home improvement time)... I know at least 3 people that are in the process of moving house at the moment. I know of quite a few people who engaging in home improvement/maintenance at the moment.<br.
• My friend's neighborhood in Quezon City has the highest # of covid cases in Metro Manila, they were declared an EECQHZ (Extreme Enhanced Community Quarantine Hot Zone). There are two types of quarantine in the Philippines. ECQ and EECQ. Enhanced Community Quarantine and Extreme Enhanced Community Quarantine. ACROMANIA.
  
• I was told to try PicNic for home delivery (also in the morning)
  
• I hate when people use times like this to compete instead of collaborate, boring petty self-absorbed types. Making a spectacle of yourself instead of helping the ones who are staying up late to get the work done. The sad thing is we will outlast them at the work and they will get the props. The ones who work the hardest get the leastest 'cause they don't step to the front, too busy doing what's important.----->>>Amen...
  
  

 April 3, 2020

• Zoom is basically malware. Sales of Zoom have increased over 500% in the last month.
• In the last two weeks I have been increasingly pummelled down by the inadequacies of my internet connection, preventing me from fully participating in online activities. Repeated efforts at connecting online exhaust me. Cannot use video in meet.jit.si. Zoom keeps on crashing. Forms of exclusionary practices in the here and now are around internet connectivity.
  * We need to consider inclusive practices for online communication.
  
  

 April 4, 2020

• A teacher from Hastings: “I didn’t think the Apocalypse would have this much admin”
• Netherlands is now seen as a 'Corona Risk Area'. Germany has closed borders with all neighbouring countries. Strict controls are carried out at border crossings that are still open.

 April 9, 2020 

• In the first week of April (March 30 to April 3), 69 companies were declared bankrupt. That is 25 more bankruptcies than in the week before (March 23-27). This was announced by the CBS (Centraal Bureau voor Statistiek) (Central Bureau of Statistics) in the second weekly update about the number of bankruptcies. Most bankruptcies occurred in the catering industry.
• '1.5 METRES DISTANCE IS NOT ENOUGH FOR CYCLING AND WALKING'. Researchers simulated the saliva particles released when someone coughs. It showed that the cloud of droplets lingers in the air while walking or jogging. If you walk 1.5 metres behind it in the so-called slipstream, you will still breathe in the droplets. The distance rule of 1.5 metres would therefore be especially effective for people who are stationary. According to the researchers, people should keep at least 4 to 5 metres away while walking. For jogging and slow cycling 10 metres and for hard cycling at least 20 metres.

 April 10, 2020

• MUNICIPALITY OF ROTTERDAM USING CAMERA VEHICLES TO ENFORCE CORONA MEASURES

April 11, 2020 

• "A Dutch entrepreneur asked this morning if we would please let his German customers through. * This is a strange request, if you request this, then you don't quite get it [the situation].

 April 16, 2020 

• Pad vandalism. Entire pad erased, history unretreivable for a few minutes, believed at first to be a hack.
• Message Log

Written and erased: I don't know how this is going to be useful for m y class

• Written and left behind:

I am adding content here because it is going to be SUPER USEFUL
lol I smell beta male energy
WTF WTF Did the hacker write this?
Lol no I wrote the beta male part.
Was trolling back.
IP Address of vandal: Chicago. Was not a hack, just a rando.

  April 18, 2020

• I received an email invitation in my spambox to join a survey for Southeast Asian design research. I clicked on the link and was taken to Google survey form. I wanted to participate and do a bit of my duty as a SEAzn. Was required to use a Google ID, which meant that even though I did not provide my name my email address (with my full name and profile picture) would be shared. It was required to state my educational attainment, how i participated in the field of design, my race, city of residence, i could choose to not state my gender but i still had to click on "rather not say" than skip the question entirely. I felt quite unsafe, as I did not entirely know who was surveying me, even though I knew it was probably trusted people of trusted people. So I did not participate in the survey.

 April 20, 2020 

• About 44 percent of the Dutch citizens have started working from home because of the crisis or do so more often than before. The experiences with working from home are mostly positive. However, most students and pupils who follow education remotely do not find that pleasant.

 April 28, 2020

• LIVE BLOG 10:52
• LONG LINES AT IKEA
• Long lines have started to form at various IKEA stores. As of today, the Dutch branches will be open for the first time in six weeks. Customers can enter in phases with two people at the same time.
• When the shops opened at 10am, there were lines in many places to the end of the parking lot. It is very busy at the shops in Utrecht, Eindhoven, Amersfoort, Barendrecht and Heerlen.

 April 29, 2020

• Mental effects of the corona crisis
• Research has finally been done on the effects of the corona crisis and the following measures.
• Research shows that it has been a threat to society, yet Dutch people shown much solidarity towards each other and try to make the most of it.
• 6,600 individuals partook in the research.
• Results show that 74.3 % find the crisis a serious threat for themselves or others.
• They also show that 38% do not go to the doctors for fear of infection, even if care is needed.
• 25% fear for their job
• The corona situation has most affected people who are more vulnerable- people with low income, the elderly, and sick individuals. And this group is only getting bigger with the crisis.
• Many people are turning up to the doctor’s with headaches and stomach aches, symptoms which after further questioning are often linked to stress and anxiety, especially now that the economic impact is starting to become clearer.
• People are not only worried for their own future, but also the neighbourhood’s future.
• The research shows that solidarity amongst people in neighbourhoods has increased.

 May 12, 2020

• Police officers experienced more violence in April than before the corona crisis.
• In the week of April 6, there were 40 percent more cases of violence against the police than before the crisis.
• In other weeks there was also above average violence against the police.
• This includes 'corona spitters', people who cough or spit in the face of police officers and threaten to corona infection. The number of incidents is now falling again.

 May 15, 2020 

• So I took some time off from work because too much emotional labor compounded with pressures to perform, to do all this new work on top of all the old work that was already unsustainable. Pressure to reinvent education is also frightening.
• Adding to this! We need new skills, who will teach the teachers to teach

 May 19, 2020 

• Was going through my text editor application, had 25 documents open for the last few weeks, months, since march. I just kept them open, too many things happening at the same time. Found this note, don't remember why I wrote it, I think it was supposed to be part of an email, didn't want to save it in a random folder and forget even where I put it. So I'll put it here:
  
  

We are finite creatures, with limits to what we can handle (in isolation). It’s ok to slow down, if we need it. Those who are able must, in this moment of extenuating circumstances, step up for those who are not able. And understand that when we cannot be there, someone else must bear a heavier weight. Solutions should be found together, in reciprocity, to collectivize and "deprivatize" the load.

 May 20, 2020

• The weight of an institution. Weighing people's competency, constantly, is what makes the institution so difficult for me. The bureacracy that is created around politics of weight is extensive. Because it violent to weigh someone's worth or disworth, a system of checks and balances must be created to regulate it. And preclude the possibility of contesting what weight is recorded on the academic scales. Credits are load bearing, here they are even called weights, I believe? Teachers pitting weight (or distributing it) in the classrooms. Measuring effectivity of an education. Discplinary processes, "throwing the book" at someone, because the book is heavy and inflicts pain. Discipline is heavy. Disciplinary procedures creating unnecessary weight for issues that should be lighter. How to write protocol so it is flexible, curvy, aerodynamic, as light as possible but still firm, pliable through multiple, carefully placed folds, an effective exoskeleton. This necessitates a complexly written but streamlined approach, understanding where the points of stress are in order to know where the folding must happen. It needs an architectural approach, one that is familiar with the tensive strength of paperwork. A policy that is able to create flexible contingencies. I digress. I am technically off work. But I suppose this is the part of the work that doesn't feel like obligation. Why do I always find myself veering towards architectural metaphors?