Image: Engineered antibody, 2016 by Anna Dumitriu
In the troubled context of Covid-19, we thought that it was not sufficient to compile and organize, in our usual categories, the substantial volume of information and analyses we have collected regarding the meanings and effects of the pandemic in relation to gender, sexuality, HIV/AIDS and abortion. We have, therefore, chosen to organize this material in a different format, situating these thematic categories in relation to the implications of COVID-19 for politics, the economy and biopolitics. Additionally, as the pandemic has initially affected the so-called central economies — China, Europe and the US — before spreading to other countries and regions, we invited collaborators to write about contexts that had not been looked at by the mainstream media, especially in Brazil.
This excellent, long and detailed analysis and summary of events is under the following headings:
- Exceptionality and de-democratization
- Capitalism, gender and sexuality
- Biopolitical implications
- Reproductive health and abortion
- Anti-gender politics
See especially Sexuality & Art, with the report “Engineered antibody”, by artist Anna Dumitriu. “She is a British artist who works with BioArt, sculpture, installation and digital media to explore our relationship with infectious diseases, synthetic biology and robotics. Her work attempts to interweave the scientific, cultural and personal implications of infectious diseases, using tools and techniques from microbiology and synthetic biology in the laboratory and studio to create works of art that aim to reveal the strange stories and the emerging future of biomedicine. She studies how a disease or virus is seen and represented over wide time scales, just as myths and stigmas are created.”
SPW, 29 April 2020