Paper short abstract:

Corona Haikus project was a response to the lockdowns and to the shock, to the fear of the unknown and to the need to create a space to be together and to feel connected. The proposition was simple: three images and a short Japanese poetic haiku text on the experience of lockdown.

Paper long abstract:

Corona Haikus project was a response to the lockdowns that were being imposed around the globe and to the subsequent impossibility to continue life as it had been planned. A response to the shock, to the fear of the unknown and to the need to create a space to be together and to feel connected. The proposition was simple: three images and a short text on the experience of lockdown. It draws from the old Japanese poetic haiku structure.

It represents snippets of daily life, diverse and overlapping realities of the human experience of living through a pandemic lockdown. What the observer finds in Curated experiences, are ways into the labyrinth of the haikus gallery that allows to browse without getting lost, to be a flaneur and to follow someone else’s guidance.

Catharsis, emotions, interaction, storytelling, location, space and time are very interesting pillars in Corona Haikus Project. Cyberspace is the space of communication and interaction. Participants share their stories and communicate with each other simultaneously since in virtual space geography limitations no longer exist. Time is an interesting concept and it inspires rhetorical questions such as: Is time linear or cyclical? A debate that exists since Plato and Aristotle.

It has been an invitation to look to the world around us with new eyes, to detect the essence and the multiple interpretations of familiar objects, nature, light, colours and even daily routines. The project reached 1100 members from around the world who have embraced it and participated actively. https://coronahaikus.com/