Location: London, UK
COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak
Lockdown
This is an excellent article by Tarek Iskander who is the artisitic director at Battersea Arts Centre. In it he talks about the performing arts world using this time to address the issues in theatre before we launch back in - what we had wasn't perfect and now we can change things:
https://www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/opinion/the-arts-after-covid-19-lets-fix-the-things-that-werent-right-before
I think it's a sound point that this is a moment in history that could be used to fix some problems and one that we could apply to many elements of our daily lives. Where have our priorities changed? What is essential to us now?
For example: many people like to work from home or have the option to do so. Before the lockdown I know of many friends who were denied this by their companies saying it wasn't possible, or just doesn't work for their company. Well clearly, that's not the case. It is possible and it can work. Working from home could make an enormous difference to someone's day to day life. It could help ease the burden on an overloaded transport system. And people flying across the world for meetings - they've all been taking place online. Have they been less effective meetings? I doubt it. All these small changes would reduce pollution and increase air quality.
I'm not suggesting a radical change but I think this lockdown has shown us that just because something has always been done a certain way, it doesn't mean it needs to continue to be so.
By nature, we are social creatures and we want and need to be together. This has been evidenced by how people have embraced the likes of Zoom, Skype etc to talk to friends and family. We all want to be able to see each other freely again and it's when that simple liberty is taken away do we realise how much we need it.
This is an excellent article by Tarek Iskander who is the artisitic director at Battersea Arts Centre. In it he talks about the performing arts world using this time to address the issues in theatre before we launch back in - what we had wasn't perfect and now we can change things:
https://www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/opinion/the-arts-after-covid-19-lets-fix-the-things-that-werent-right-before
I think it's a sound point that this is a moment in history that could be used to fix some problems and one that we could apply to many elements of our daily lives. Where have our priorities changed? What is essential to us now?
For example: many people like to work from home or have the option to do so. Before the lockdown I know of many friends who were denied this by their companies saying it wasn't possible, or just doesn't work for their company. Well clearly, that's not the case. It is possible and it can work. Working from home could make an enormous difference to someone's day to day life. It could help ease the burden on an overloaded transport system. And people flying across the world for meetings - they've all been taking place online. Have they been less effective meetings? I doubt it. All these small changes would reduce pollution and increase air quality.
I'm not suggesting a radical change but I think this lockdown has shown us that just because something has always been done a certain way, it doesn't mean it needs to continue to be so.
By nature, we are social creatures and we want and need to be together. This has been evidenced by how people have embraced the likes of Zoom, Skype etc to talk to friends and family. We all want to be able to see each other freely again and it's when that simple liberty is taken away do we realise how much we need it.
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