DORSCON ORANGE - DOCUMENTING THE COVID-19 (CORONAVIRUS) IN SINGAPORE

On the 23rd of January 2020, The Ministry of Health of Singapore announced the first case of the Coronavirus (now known as COVID-19). Since that day, cases of people down with the virus has rapidly been increasing. The outbreak has resulted in the DORSCON (‘Disease Outbreak Response System Condition') to be escalated to ORANGE since the 7th of February 2020. This project is a visual documentation of my country, Singapore, gripped in fear. The usual hangout spots are empty. We hear no laughter from the neighborhood playgrounds for children. The coffee-shops see no elderly folks socializing with each other. We cannot even enter most shopping malls without having our temperatures taken first. At schools and commercial buildings, if your temperature is found to be more than 38 degrees Celsius, you are denied entry and are told to either go to a clinic or back home immediately. This is an on-going project that aims to be an account of how my country got hit badly by a foreign flu virus and (hopefully) recovered without fatalities. Ever since the DORSCON was escalated to Orange, I have spent between 4 to 6 hours a day, every single day, walking around many different parts of Singapore to photograph people and talk to them to learn more about how they are dealing with the outbreak. My equipment of choice is the Sony A7III and the SEL2470GM lens. I present this series in black and white because it, metaphorically, represents a dark period in the history of Singapore as the COVID-19 has been described to be more serious than SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). In addition to that, over the past decade, the topic of race has been the cause of a lot of heated debates among the youth of Singapore. Due to this virus originating from Wuhan, China, there has been an outbreak of racism towards the Chinese populace in Singapore as well. By eliminating colors out of the equation I, as a Singaporean who was born to a multi-racial family with many different faiths, submit that everyone is equal in this war against the COVID-19 virus.