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Welcome to Kawan—our vibrant community of data heads and storytellers. We’re all about improving data literacy and sharing nuanced stories about Asia. Come hang!
Unlearning what we know — issue #58
“I have learned the names of all the bushes, but I have yet to learn their songs.” These past months, the Kontinentalist team has been deep in learning and reflection. We started our “Decolonial Reading Club”: bi-monthly sessions breaking down coloniality, knowledge, and being. This quote from Braiding Sweetgrass, recounting
On Palestine: Covering culture in a time of genocide
What does Gaza require from those who bear witness? The team behind our latest story on Palestine shares their process, thoughts, and feelings while highlighting the beauty of life in Gaza amid the profound loss of Palestinian heritage and cultural identity. Zafirah (Writer): I came across an Instagram post by
Sports is political: An analysis of power and bias in global sports
Munirah and Zafirah, who worked on the microstory Rise of the Underdogs: How Asia left its mark on the 2022 FIFA World Cup, reflect on how the Olympics is colonial by design. Beatrice Go, the writer behind SEA Games: A stage of unity or power play, joins them to take
Behind the Seams: Wax & Stitch Workshop
How the idea started At Kontinentalist, most people know us because of our stories, but we’ve always been interested in making data more approachable and relatable to people’s daily lives. So it was serendipitous when we met Hafiz Rashid, an experienced museum docent and self-proclaimed “Nusantara otaku” at
Small but Mighty: Behind the Scenes
Our latest microstory Small But Mighty: Conservation lessons from a community in Kinabatangan began with a visit to the headquarters of Our Better World, a local non-profit digital storytelling studio started by the Singapore International Foundation, which highlights stories of global communities doing good. There, they introduced us to the
Data is just texture
How can we develop a more intentional approach, methodology, or manifesto around our perspectives towards data? Particularly, how do we think of it ethically, countering eurocentrism whilst applying a feminist and decolonial approach?
Dataviz in Asia (May 23')
I always joke that working in the field of data storytelling is like attending an eternal university—the learning (and unlearning) never really stops. At Kontinentalist, we're constantly rethinking our approaches to data storytelling, grounding them in lived experiences and contextual understandings. We strive to learn from different
Dataviz in Asia (April 24')
Spring is finally here! As my colleagues Zafirah, Munirah, Michael, and I brainstormed the theme for this issue, we found ourselves drawn to the transient essence of the season in April. It's a time marked by various new beginnings, with festivals such as Ponggal and Songkran happening, and
Dataviz in Asia (March 24')
For this month’s Dataviz in Asia, we’re highlighting works by two of our favourite female data viz practitioners. Shirley Wu and Gurman Bhatia both use data to amplify the contributions of women in the arts and entertainment industries. We’re self-professed patrons of the arts here at Kontinentalist
Applying visual metaphors: How we visualised period poverty in Asia
This microstory came about when Singaporean period care company Blood launched its “Period-Positive Workplaces” movement in 2022. A communications agency had sent over a press release of the initiative, which included survey findings on period shaming at work. Having never experienced bullying or pressure of any kind related to my
How we talked about sex (ed), baby
We share our process of creating a microstory about the evolution of sex education policy in Singapore over the past two decades, shedding light on its pivotal role in shaping the nation's attitude towards sexuality—and vice versa. We delve into how we collated and analysed over 200
Dataviz in Asia (Feb 24')
Love is in the air this month, and data’s capturing every moment of it. For this issue of Dataviz in Asia, let’s look at all the creative ways that people are telling their stories of love through data visualisations. First, let's explore the epic love triangle
Love in Singapore: When the third-party is the state
There is a longstanding quirk associated with getting married in Singapore. Instead of proposing to their partner, a Singaporean might ask, “Wanna get BTO?” This entails applying for a public Built-To-Order (BTO) flat under the government’s Fiancè/Fiancèe scheme. It’s a balloting process, as BTOs are highly subsidised
Meet the Community: JP Campos
JP Campos is the founder of Media Commoner, otherwise known as Commoner, a social media-first independent media organisation based in the Philippines. He is also a Multimedia Executive Producer at Provill Studios, a Manila-based film production agency. Amidst a transformative year, JP contemplates the evolving responsibilities of storytellers in the
