Being useful, relevant and productive during Covid

 By Lim Siang Jin

DURING the early days of the pandemic, there was a lot of confusion and, like many others displaced from their routines, I was disoriented. To keep myself rooted in reality, I decided I should do things that are useful, relevant and productive. But what? These are motherhood ideas that meant nothing without any translation into actual practices. I began to get my bearings after a month or two, so during the Covid years I did three things, apart from keeping myself physically and mentally fit:

• Completion of editorial projects. With the large amounts of free time I had, I decided to complete the following:
• WPS Beacon Issue No 2: For our first issue, we had more than 30 pieces. By the start of 2020, we only had a handful for the second issue. I decided to add a series on the games we played as children to bulk up the issue 
• Being brave and angry – IOCU 1982-83: Articles published by the Regional Office for the Asia-Pacific of the International Organisation of Consumers Union (IOCU). Due to the  probability of being sued for libel (we were critical of transnationals like Nestle and Ciba-Geigy), I have decided not to publish these material but keep them in my private records. 
• “Four cheers for the backroom”: An article detailing four out of the ordinary events related to The Edge production team (to be published later)

• Covid-19 and beyond: There was a dearth of reliable information on Covid-19 in the early months. I thought if I could collate and disseminate material from reliable sources, I would be able to assist friends and other professionals in journalism, academia and think tanks in their work. I recalled that in 1982-83, when I was with IOCU, we published a monthly news digest called Consumer Currents. These days, with the internet, a “CC” would take a very different form. Every entry of the Covid-19 and beyond website has (a) labels to facilitate search (b) a brief excerpt of the story with its source and a link to it and (c) date and place of origin. I approached Seng Sun and Guan Khim to help out initially but it was impossible to co-ordinate so we gave up after a few weeks. I carried on alone. Eventually, the project from March 2020 to November 2021 garnered a collection of over 1,900 pieces. I am quite proud especially to collect most of the pieces from writers like:
• Amar Singh
• Arundhati Roy
• Pulitzer Prize winner Ed Yong
• Jeyakumar Devaraj
• Jomo Kwame Sundaram
• P Gunasegaram
• Tomas Pueyo

Also labelled were journals like BMJ, The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. An array of topics was included, like misinformation, neoliberalism, equitable access and vaccination implementation. Please click on the names or terms to view the collections.

• Restart my art: I managed to start painting seriously again in 2020 after a break of 30 years. This year I held a solo exhibition at APW in Bangsar from Oct 21-30. Read here (The Edge) and here (The Malay Mail). Articles were also carried in theSun, New Straits Times, Mashable and Says. I am very thankful to my many media friends for their support. For the project, I also started a website, www.limsiangjin.art.

Bickering Over Durian, June 2022, acrylic, ink and pencil on paper, 30in H x 22.3in W