Online lockdown diaries as endurance art

Abstract

When the city of Wuhan was severely locked down on January 23, 2020 for 76 days due to the coronavirus outbreak, many residents started writing "lockdown diaries." This article argues these diaries constitute a kind of performance art for their authors, specifically, an 'art of endurance' as described by Shalson (2018). Keeping a diary requires a plan, but the following through of the plan is a contingent process requiring efforts and endurance. The challenges become particularly daunting for authors of online diaries in pandemic times. The article analyzes multiple types of endurance associated with the Wuhan lockdown diarists, showing that in digitally-driven environments, where potential collective responses are a key context, the lockdown diaries of Wuhan, like works of endurance art, engage with meanings that reach far beyond their original experience and context. Their stories of endurance are an allegory of the endurance of the entire city of Wuhan.

Debating China beyond the Great Firewall: Digital Disenchantment and Authoritarian Resilience

“…A recent case would be the COVID-19 pandemic which has sparked nationalism across the world [ 26 , 37 , 60 , 69 , 75 , 86 ]. In China, for instance, Fang Fang, author of Wuhan Diary , while applauded in the West and by Chinese liberals, is accused of tainting China’s image, thus becoming the target of nationalist besiege [ 83 ]. Moreover, many Chinese, through observing how Western media and governments presented China in the pandemic, see the West as inherently biased.…”

Wuhan: Diari di una città chiusa. Il maggiore caso di censura letteraria nella Cina post-riforme

“…In tal senso, non si può parlare di Fang Fang come di un'intellettuale contro il partito, ma piuttosto di un'intellettuale del popolo, laddove la sua opera non si ferma a discutere la sola condizione pandemica ma rimanda a riflessioni politiche di più ampio spettro. Come afferma Yang Guobin i Diari si possono considerare una forma di «arte della resistenza» 18 . L'appassionata ricerca della verità che caratterizza l'opera è qualcosa di inestricabilmente sociale.…”

“Poets, What Can We Do?”

“…But it is only the tip of the iceberg. Countless diaries have been produced by people coming from different walks of life, many of whom had never written anything before (Bao 2020;2022;Yang 2021). In sum, while the societies of East and Southeast Asia appear to have responded rapidly and efficiently to the outbreak of COVID-19-even if this came at the cost of draconian measures-the same would seem to have occurred on the literary field.…”