Viral agencies and curating worldly life differently in museum spaces

The Covid-19 pandemic was a shock but hardly a surprise. Despite predictions of emerging potentially catastrophic viral agents and a strong history of such occurrences, we were unprepared. In discussing the H5N1 avian influenza strain in Indonesia, viral ethnographer Celia Lowe observes, 'microbes are made significant in given contexts, and the material properties play an iterative role in shaping the milieu in which they come to exist.'1 Covid-19 is a significant curatorial agent co-making a new milieu with us borne out of previous forms. Coronaviruses exist in the background as silent life forms in our bodies and are made significant when their contagion spills over and threatens human populations, their health, their interests or has the capacity to violently kill.