In this bedeviled year of all years Dekate Mousa had hoped to hold a photography and film festival. “We wanted to give the participants a theme and a window of 48 hours in which to work with student drama association Doppio to develop that theme into a short film,” says Levi Baruch, president of Dekate Mousa. “It would have been so much fun. Great things can come of combining a group of students armed with professional cinematographic equipment and another group of students familiar with script writing and acting. Of course, corona put paid to that event. It's on hold. But we hope we can run it in the spring.”

The festival is not the only thing the association saw fall by the wayside. But an alternative to the annual photo expo was easier to find: an online exhibition.

“We want to show how the corona crisis is changing how we work at uni,” says bachelor's student of Psychology & Technology Baruch. “The assignment is to capture the notion that things that used to seem really normal have become extraordinary. Take getting coffee for example, a typical university activity. Then the first photo in your series is going to show this activity in the present circumstances. The second photo will show the fantasy of doing this in normal times, surrounded by people. The aim of the third photo is to show how that fantasy compares with reality.”

One way to show that you imagine yourself to be among people when, in fact, you are alone is by using the photo technique of cloning. When the call was put out during the online AGM seven members were enthusiastic; the result is six photo series. Baruch hopes that visitors to the expo will identify with the images and reflect on themselves. “Speaking for myself, I am starting to notice how normal I already find social distancing. It is good to take a moment to reflect on the host of feelings corona has triggered among students and employees at TU/e.”