A Chinese woman is listening to birds singing and podcast during the COVID-19 pandemic. Image by DALL·E 2

A Chinese woman is listening to birds singing and podcast during the COVID-19 pandemic. Image by DALL·E 2 

Hi, welcome to Sounding Pandemic 疫声 

This is a digital archival project born in the aftermath of the global COVID-19 pandemic. 

This ongoing archive curates the stories and sounds that marked our lives from 2020 to 2022. These voices and memories do not disappear into esther. They are finding home in sound rooms (aka sound curations).   

This archive is just a glimpse into the soundscapes of a major pandemic of our time. Though we are in a post-pandemic world now, the pandemic has not really gone away. Perhaps, for some people, it never will. Many people still feel hurt, traumatized, and silenced. We hear you. 

Sound Rooms

In the spring of 2022, two years after the Wuhan lockdown of 2020, the megacity of Shanghai—an urban agglomeration that is home to more than 26 million people—came under lockdown.  How does it sound like?

The song Jimmy Jimmy from the Bollywood film Disco Dancer (1984) has historically enjoyed a global resonance. How did it become a song of playful protest in China during COVID-19?