Curated Apertures

In spring 2020, when Covid-19 had reached its pandemic stage, we issued an international Open Call to gather global perspectives on the shared health crisis and changed reality. Here you can read the submitted contributions that reflect on the crisis's many implications from widely different angles.

Brief, Corona Essays

The format is open and can be both text and illustration, though we ask you to write in English or Danish. The submitted contributions will be published continuously on web and Facebook.

Street life is suspended, freedom of assembly is severely restricted, most institutions and workplaces are shut down, and social and professional connections are relegated to digital platforms. Home and the nation-state have become the guiding frameworks for our daily lives to an extreme degree. National borders are closed while new biological, bodily-defined boundaries have emerged through dictate. In a short time, a system of distancing has been implemented, and has, as an underlying effect, made clear the connection between us all. For better and worse.

What can one imagine that the present pandemic will - or should - mean for our approach to the built environment and urban development going forward? Less density? More surveillance? More risk management and preventive measures? What social, political and cultural effects can one fear or hope that this global state of emergency will bring about? Increased social equality and solidarity across divides? Across national borders? Or increased social control? Reduced consumption and changed mobility patterns? Are there specific building projects and planning strategies that look different in light of our still only budding experiences with the pandemic and its expected severe impact on economies worldwide? Does the Corona crisis herald the return of the welfare state? Can one imagine that positive experiences and behaviors can be drawn from the Covid-19 crisis to the climate crisis?

We look forward to an exploratory, free-thinking and inspiring debate that can help us together reflect on this time of upheaval and its possible consequences.