Art in the Age of SARS.

Outside a traditional Chinese medicine shop in Hong Kong, locals mill about, their mouths covered with white masks. They look like ordinary Asian shoppers in the age of SARS--but they are in fact actors shooting the forthcoming film "The City of SARS." An anguished look at life in the territory during the epidemic, the film--a trilogy--includes a segment starring veteran Hong Kong actor Eric Tsang as a flashy businessman contemplating suicide after the pneumonia outbreak threatens to ruin him financially. "[SARS is] our Titanic," says Tsang between takes. "A lot of acts of bravery and heroism were involved."

Every artist knows that turmoil fuels creativity. And for the past four months, nothing has caused more turmoil in Asia than severe acute respiratory syndrome. Now, from Shanghai to Singapore, the drama of living with SARS is producing an artistic movement of sorts. Through a wide range of new paintings, photographs, plays, films and songs, Asia's artists are expressing the diverse emotions--fear, anger and even hope--triggered by the disease.

Some artists are simply determined to make a record of this atypical period. "Artists are more sensitive than ordinary people," says Singaporean painter Goh Beng Kwan. Goh says his abstract work "A Year to Remember," made with oil, batik, sand and rice paper on canvas, has no special message but was inspired by the complex feelings that emerged while he listened to the daily news of the war in Iraq and the progress of the disease.

Others intend their art to provoke discussion. Singaporean playwright and actress Li Xie wrote the interactive Mandarin-language play "SARS" after witnessing negative reactions--like the ostracization of medical workers--in the early days of the outbreak. Li's drama, which requires audience participation, has been playing to positive reviews. Canadian photographer Marcus Oleniuk, who has lived in Hong Kong for 11 years, assembled more than 80 portraits for a book and exhibit that he sees as a public forum. Since early April he has been taking Polaroids of random, mostly masked people and asking them to scribble on the image how they feel about SARS.

Ordinary citizens, too, have felt compelled to create. When the Hong Kong Arts Center announced the creation ...