The Covid-19 pandemic period which forced many workers to carry out office tasks from home has changed their way of life a lot. Routines that were once foreign, such as gardening and accompanying children to play, have now become commonplace. A habit that also appears, especially in Javanese society, is to create art.

The Covid-19 pandemic period which forced many workers to carry out office tasks from home has changed their way of life a lot. Routines that were once foreign, such as gardening and accompanying children to play, have now become commonplace. A habit that also appears, especially in Javanese society, is to create art.

Prof. Suwardi said that the Corona Puppet is a form of art that emerged due to the boredom of the Javanese people towards social restrictions and forms of resistance to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic. Through the new compositions of puppets that feature symbols, stories and even typical accompaniment songs with the theme of the pandemic period, people creatively and adaptively migrate from the old culture to the new post-pandem culture.

These cultural mitigation measures became important findings for local wisdom scholarship which was later appointed by Prof. Suwardi and the team consisting of Dr. Sri Harti Widyastuti, Dr. Zulfi Hendri, Dwi Wulandari, M.A.Ed. and several students became the theme of the workshop which was held on October 14-15 2021 online. The Wayang Literature and Craft Workshop for Self Healing and Capacity Building for Creative Economy Development during the Covid-19 Pandemic was attended by dozens of participants who were Indonesian Diaspora and Foreign Citizens (WNA) from Australia and Russia.

The workshop became rich when it entered a discussion session where the Indonesian Diaspora and foreigners shared local experiences on how the Australian and Russian people mitigated the negative impact of social restrictions during the Pandemic. According to them, artistic activities based on creativity can be a solution-based alternative activity as a substitute for negative activities such as drinking alcohol.

The workshop ended with a craft activity to make puppet bookmarks accompanied by Dr. Zulfi Hendri, Dwi Wulandari, M.A.Ed.. Participants were introduced to characters composed of corona puppets, such as Semar wearing a mask or Heroine carrying a vaccine syringe. They then apply the Corona wayang characters in pictures and finish them through a cutting process to become interesting artisan bookmarks.

This artistic activity is a form of therapeutic art that can be done during the pandemic to reduce anxiety and at the same time can be developed into a creative business idea. Mrs. Timi and Mrs. Bea, workshop participants who work as school teachers in Australia, said that they are motivated and will conduct similar workshops for their students at school to develop the creativity of their students.