When Words Fail — the Power of Imagery During a Pandemic
The river of words went on incessantly. Daily public health briefings came in waves across Canada’s six time zones. Nightly news broadcasts, daily podcasts and hourly radio programs filled our ears. Regional motivational slogans like Quebec’s “Ça va bien aller”; and BC’s “Be kind, be calm and be safe” called from posters and backdrops. The din of leaders imploring citizens to stay safe, stay home, socially distance, and wash hands was overwhelming. Chatter from household phone and video calls burbled in the background. My vocabulary grew with new terms like surface transmission, aerosolization, planking and flattening curves, hypoxia, community spread, PPE, N95, R0, contact tracing, viral shedding and super-spreaders.
And yet, in those early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, I could find no anchor in this flood of words. I listened and read throughout the day, but couldn’t truly get a sense the scope, scale, or impact of the emerging crisis. I had so many questions: Were our health leaders being overly cautious with their warnings and advice in order to preempt overwhelming our healthcare system with critically-ill patients? Or was a deadly plague rolling across the country, about to kill millions? … Did the science community understand the virus well enough to generate accurate modelling of its potential spread? Or were we still on a steep learning curve, abruptly course correcting as we went along? … Did we have the right equipment and procedures to protect our most vulnerable citizens? Or were front line workers, seniors in care facilities, and other at-risk populations doomed? … I couldn’t find meaningful answers to these questions. For me, there was no useful insight in the narrative.
Even the numbers, the constant streams of pandemic statistics, didn’t help as there was too much variability in how that data was collected and analyzed. Within Canada, the ways provinces counted a COVID-19 related case or death varied significantly. Between countries there was even more inconsistency.
And yet — as a researcher, educator and consultant — words and numbers are essential in my work. Reading, analyzing data, and writing can typically occupy half of my day. So, what was missing?
It was images. It was powerful images and stories that communicated what words and numbers could not. The first images to help me find meaning were the March videos of overwhelmed hospitals in Italy that communicated the terror of a public health crisis that seemed out of control. And it was the harrowing April drone images of mass burial of bodies in pine caskets (see photo above) in New York City that concretized the human impact of the virus for me — the need for these burials of unclaimed bodies increased fivefold at the peak of NYC’s pandemic surge and required the hiring of additional gravediggers. Hospital photographers like Jeff Rhode told the intimate visual stories of pandemic deaths in New Jersey, making the data hauntingly human. The sadness of empty September streets in Melbourne during Australia’s second wave lockdown forewarned of the potential social and economic impact in Canada’s October pandemic second wave. Little children wearing masks and heading back to elementary school, getting their hands sanitized by adults in PPE, not sure of what was happening around them, communicated the precarious nature of continuing to navigate the world before vaccine availability becomes a reality.
And, so, as we go forward in the Grey Swan Guild — with our goal of helping others make sense of a rapidly-changing world, accelerated by this latest pandemic — images and stories will be an increasingly-important part of our meaning-making our research. I’ve joined other like-minded Guild members in a special project to explore the Liminality of our changing world. Our qualitative visual research for this project may include ethnography, photo elicitation, film, photo-stories, and art alongside text-based works that evoke powerful imagery including storytelling, poetry, song, and spoken word. We know that the weak signals, the early glimpses, the faint clues of where the world might be headed are more likely to be found in these qualitative data, than in an over-reliance on the so-called predictive analytics of hindsight data emerging from traditional quantitative research methods. During times of great change, hindsight is not the foresight and insight we need. As behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman said, “Hindsight bias makes surprises vanish.” We hope to be surprised by the results of our study and exploration into our liminal state.
If you’re interested in joining the Grey Swan Guild, there are many ways to participate. Hop over to our website, share your contact details, take a look at some of our publications, contribute some of your own creative words and images, and join our volunteer group in our attempt to help make sense of this changing world.
Dr. Sharon McIntyre is a researcher, educator, entrepreneur and consultant. She works at the intersection of innovation, values and creative culture — with a focus on technology-enabled entrepreneurship and product commercialization. She leads New Cottage Industries & Co., an education company focused on building practical creativity skills and everyday innovation capacity with their clients. She’s also the Chief Social Scientist for Chaordix, a pioneer in crowdsourced innovation communities. Sharon is a founding member of the Grey Swan Guild and is keen to see what emerges from the second wave of research by our global group of volunteers. You can find her walking her dog and renovating a house in the village of Saanichton, a satellite community of Victoria, BC on Canada’s west coast. Find Sharon online as @ shazzmack.
