The National Youth Council of Singapore, in partnership with DSTNCT, an integrated marketing agency, has embarked on a nationwide initiative called Dear Covid-19. It is designed to shed light on everyday life during the circuit breaker as many stayed home, utilising virtual photography to capture intimate moments in each of their homes.
Future generations will look back and wonder what really happened at this critical juncture. The world is changing at a rapid speed and our stories provide an important inside look into what is really happening now. Singaporeans are being asked by Dear Covid-19 to share their experiences, thoughts, feelings, hopes, fears and aspirations to preserve this historic moment in time, through a heartfelt letter to COVID-19. As an added incentive, Dear Covid-19 is giving away $50 Grab Food vouchers to four people everyday until 12 June 2020.
The project was conceived based on the importance in capturing the voices of Singaporeans during this time, to highlight the resilience of our people and how our community came together in these times of need. Such content has the ability to form the bedrock of personal and real-time stories for multiple future forms of creative expression to mark this tipping point.
Across the last two weeks, 100 virtual photoshoots have been conducted with Singaporeans from all walks of life going through a multitude of life experiences, all being affected by COVID-19. The photoshoots took place entirely virtually on platforms such as FaceTime and Zoom, in full compliance with the circuit breaker measures that have been in place for Singapore.
Along with the photos taken, letters written to Covid-19 all aptly starting with “Dear Covid-19” have been displayed in individual photo galleries on the website which also houses a live-feed gallery, which displays user-generated content under the hashtag #DearCovid19SG. It has garnered contributions from youths including songs, photos, poems and letters among the like.
The virtual photoshoot element was an innovative approach in order to capture the attention of youths, while the naming of Dear Covid-19 was deliberate to place stories at the heart of this campaign.
