SPCkraft Premieres “From Playground To The Computer” A Documentary On Covid And Education
New Delhi: The pandemic has impacted the way we work, interact and learn with social distancing forcing a more virtual existence, both professionally and personally. But among the most affected are the children: their education and leisure activities have been disrupted. To highlight their plight, SPCkraft, an interdisciplinary art collective, led by artist Sujoy Prosad has produced a documentary film, “From Playground To The Computer”. The documentary can be viewed on https://www.facebook.com/SPCkraft/.
Children are all about spontaneity! They yearn for the human touch of their friends during playtime and in school. But the pandemic has meant this most-essential facet of a child’s life has gone missing for over a year now. Today, the medium for a child’s daily education and interaction with friends is virtual. It’s a ‘new normal’. As children cope with this ‘new normal’, one positive take away is that they are now more cyber savvy than their seniors ever were at the same age. Besides studies, they are getting involved in online creative activities such as drama competitions and storytelling sessions, ways to combat the isolation that the pandemic has brought in everyone’s life.
“From The Playground To The Computer” aims to showcase the turmoil of children through contributions from vocalists Lopamudra Mitra and Neepabithi Ghosh Dasgupta, Animesh Debroy (West Bengal State President, NIFAA), Sumanta Sarkar (Chief Functionary & Founder, Urotaar), Rekha Krishnan (Head, Vasant Valley School, Delhi), Brinda Sen (Ex Associate Professor, Victoria Institution) and others.
“The pandemic has paralysed the education system at one hand and on the other, it has also made us look within. The documentation aims to look inwards”, said Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee.
Says Parbati Bhattacharya, Director of the Documentary, “ As a teacher and an educator myself, I feel that the single largest disruption that has been caused due to Covid 19 has been in field of education. Through this documentary, we have tried our best to bring out both the positive, as well as negative impact of the pandemic on students. Despite the benefits of Online Learning, there is still a large chunk of students for whom the pandemic may turn out be the end of the rope in terms of their education due to different factors such as lack of access to mobile phones, laptops, internet connectivity, etc.”
Participating members of SPCkraft in the virtual presentation are Parbati Bhattacharya, who has directed this documentary, Pritha Biswas Saha, Sayani Roy, Sanchita Tapadar, Sampa Das, Protyusha Dey and Shweta Dey. The script has been written by the members while Atanu Burman and Monoreena Majumder’s poetries have been featured in the documentary.