“Humankind is now facing a global crisis. Perhaps the biggest crisis of our generation. The decision people and governments take in the next few weeks will probably shape the world for years to come. They will shape not just our healthcare systems but also our economy, politics and culture.”
— Yuval Noah Harari, The World After Coronavirus, 2020
The year 2020 is already half way through. With the outbreak of the epidemic from a single point to a widespread pandemic that has covered the world, masks, quarantine, nucleic acid tests have become part of our daily life. From the terrified and anxious state to becoming accustomed to it, peoples’ emotions and reactions have changed forever. At the same time, warnings of disasters such as earthquakes, tsunami, rainstorms, floods, locust plagues are constantly being reported on in different places. The world is changing silently and dramatically at this moment and most people are forced to surge forward constantly and unconsciously under these circumstances. All we can do is to occasionally gasp and contemplate the earthshaking change around us.
As most countries have entered the post-pandemic era, the crisis brought about by COVID-19 has long gone beyond the immune stage. Instead, it has gradually spread to the political, economic, ethnic, and environmental fields of human society. In this context, medical concepts such as "herd immunity" have been proposed. In addition to the research within the scientific circle, there are also influences in the political field and social ethics that need to be examined. Meanwhile, people's understanding of "immunity" also develops from a simple medical concept to the discussion of state policies, ethics, morality and national crises.
In the year 2020, human society has undoubtedly been immersed in a “State of Emergency”. While the realistic world stops us from moving ahead, the virtual field provides us with the possibility of stepping forward. We, humans, are frozen in a certain grid of space and time and are forced to experience the convergence and diaspora in the invisible virtual area that we never had to experience before. The rapid development of technology and the digital world in this era has enabled people to become accustomed to quarantine, work from home, and communicate with each other remotely after a brief period of anxiety and panic — we are adapting to life in the pandemic and the normalization of the “State of Emergency” has begun. Under these circumstances, it seems that various aftereffects led by the coronavirus has gradually been “immunized” along with the increasingly blurred boundary between the emergency state and daily life.
We become accustomed to a life in crisis and the boundaries between countries, between contexts, and between fields are gradually dispelled in turmoil. At this moment, what can art tell, reveal, and warn in such a complex situation?
With the first attempt of the ongoing project “Reflecting the Sharing Moment” organized by CAFA ART INFO, the online exhibition More Than The Immune Problem invites both domestic and international artists to record and present their reflections on the world and themselves in the year 2020. Diversified thinking and expressions from these artists are expected to be shared and discussed in a broader sense.
More Than The Immune Problem
Reflecting the Sharing Moment | Section One
Launch Date: 2020.09.29
Participating Artists (in alphabetical order of surnames):
Tom BUTTER, Simone DOUGLAS, Anna DUMITRIU, Rania Lee KHALIL, LIN Yan, LIU Xiaodong, Michal MARTYCHOWIEC, QIU Zhijie, Spam Church, SU Xinping, SUN Yuan, WEI Jia, YANG Jiechang, YU Hong, John Z Long, ZHANG Yanzi
Curator: Emily ZHOU
Visual Design: Yizhi ZHANG
Organizer: CAFA ART INFO
