In Southeast Asia, the COVID-19 pandemic led to an economic contraction registered the largest drop since the 1997 Asia crisis, resulting in increasing the precarity of informal workers, women and marginalized groups. Taken aback by the scale of the crisis, societies were challenged with respect to protecting the most vulnerable in their midst. This largely was due to inadequate or non-existent allowances for informal workers and migrants and those officially considered outside of the labour market, including people with disabilities and the elderly. As government support was far from sufficient and often inequitably distributed, individuals, communities and non-governmental and non-profit organizations stepped in to try to fill these gaps by distributing food and aid as well as providing health services, family care and funeral services to those most in need.

In this exhibition organized by SEA Junction, photographers from six countries—Edy Susanto for Indonesia, Hasnoor Hussain for Malaysia, Ta Mwe for Myanmar, Kimberly dela Cruz for the Philippines, Grace Baey for Singapore, and Sayan Chuenudomsavad for Thailand—highlight the pandemic’s disproportionate health and economic impacts on disadvantaged people, which still can be felt to this day. The entrenched wealth and welfare inequities laid bare by the pandemic demand structural reforms if we are to foster more just societies. 

With the exception of Myanmar, selected photos from the countries’ documentation also served to illustrate the recently launched book, “Who Cares? COVID-19 Social Protection Response in Southeast Asia,” edited by Rosalia Sciortino and published by Silkworm Books. The exhibition as well as the book's production and respective launches, are part of a regional research project carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021-2022. This was conducted by the Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR) of Mahidol University and funded by the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) under the Integrated Strategic Research Program on Social Sciences: Khon Thai 4.0.

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