“Work as if you live in the early days of a better world.” --Alasdair Gray
The word 'crisis' comes from the Greek krisis which means "to decide, a point at which a change must come". In Queensland, the Covid-19 crisis is altering life in ways that were unimaginable even a few weeks ago.
While this is undeniably frightening, we at the Centre for Critical and Creative Writing also see it as a moment of radical possibility when we are outside the old way of doing things, and something new and better seems within reach. In short, we want to inspire our communities to imagine this as a turning point on the way to a better future world.
Taking this as inspiration, myself and my collaborator Associate Professor Kim Wilkins decided to invite young Queenslanders to submit a postcard from the hopeful, post-COVID future as part of a new creativity project.
Wish you were here! Postcards from Future Queensland is aimed at empowering our community to imagine a better future after the COVID-19 crisis, through storytelling. It is open to both high school and university students from across Queensland. To help, every fortnight throughout Term 2 and Term 3 (April 20 to Sept 18), we will produce a free, short video lesson in creative writing and propose a challenge ranging from envisioning a post-lockdown party to inventing new technologies and imagining the jobs of the future.
In our first challenge, we imagine the day lockdown has finally ended. What will the community celebration look like? Our responses so far have been amazing. Charlotte from Kelvin Grove wondered if her friends had changed. Harper from Wilston and Zoe from Paddington both reflect on what it means to just hug someone. And Georgia, a Primary school student from Carina, is dreaming of a giant post-Covid pavlova her whole community can share!
Ultimately, we want these postcards to reflect what kind of a world our writers want to grow up in. What do they hope will be the same? What do they hope will change forever? Each challenge will help students write back to them with their own postcard from future Queensland.
A number of selected entries will be published online as a snapshot of a world that could be.
Corella Press, UQ’s student-led publisher, will produce a chapbook of some of the best entries at the completion of the project.