It has been over four years since the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill, when the passage of time was marked by uncertainty, fear, suffering and loss. In the first workshop series of the 2024 BODIES-MACHINES-PUBLICS residency at Khoj, we welcomed Dr. Nishant Shah, Professor and Director of Global Media and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Dr. Alexandra Juhasz, distinguished Professor of Film at Brooklyn College, CUNY, to examine the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic continues to make its presence felt in our bodies, through the technologies that we repurposed to suit new functions, and the ways in which collective anxieties of the lockdown years have taken root in our communities.

Through the course of three days, approximately 25 participants with varied art practices, came together to answer the following central questions: When did your story of the pandemic begin? What do we mean by pandemic technologies? And in the light of what the COVID-19 pandemic showed us, as a people, what and how do we organize for as opposed to organizing against?

The workshop began with a grounding breathing session led by Shah, who also established boundaries to ensure a safe and inclusive environment. Participants reflected on the pandemic as an ongoing experience, creating symbolic marks representing their personal journeys. These marks served both as icebreakers and as personal identifiers for their work during the workshop.

In her session, Creating an Inventory, Juhasz expanded the concept of technology beyond the digital, framing it as an extension of the human that moves material across space and time. She prompted participants to consider how pandemic technologies shaped their lives, managed behaviors, and revealed systemic vulnerabilities.

Participants worked individually to identify pandemic-related technologies and then collaborated in small groups to explore connections between these objects, sharing personal and collective experiences. Through discussion, they categorized their findings under themes such as labor, catharsis, safety, self-preservation, and health.

Shah’s session the next day on Pandemic Technologies described the lockdown as an “inversion of time where the future is foreclosed, and the past is desired.” He highlighted global cultural amnesia around pandemic experiences, evident in their absence from popular media. Shah likened the lockdown period to a vacuum, inaccessible to personal and collective memory in the way it was in pre-pandemic times. Participants then reviewed the previous session’s work and collaborated in small groups to create posters reflecting the principles of pandemic technologies.

Juhasz’s session, The Place and Context of (a) Shared Technological Pandemic, introduced the concept of a syndemic—the intersection and mutual influence of multiple pandemics or epidemics. Drawing on her research and activism around HIV-AIDS, she compared its ongoing impact to the COVID-19 pandemic. Juhasz expanded the concept of “pandemic” to include cultural, political, and economic crises, prompting participants to consider syndemic examples in the Indian context. Issues such as political fascism, the digital divide, transnational racism, and gendered violence emerged as pandemics interlinked with COVID-19.

Participants formed groups around topics of personal interest and designed performative acts to engage the larger cohort. They were also invited to bring a piece of fabric or clothing from the lockdown period, if available, for the next activity.

The concluding session on the third day began with a reflection on a quilt created by participants from a previous workshop in Hong Kong. Made from fabric patches, the quilt codified their lockdown experiences. Dr. Sonia Wong, who joined the workshop via Zoom from Hong Kong, answered questions from participants at Khoj, helping them understand the context behind some of the symbols and phrases, thus shedding light on the subjectivity of the Hong Kong cohort’s pandemic experiences.

Participants were then divided into small groups to create a similar token using fabrics and objects that were significant to their memory of the pandemic. This activity gave participants the opportunity to reflect the subjectivity of the Indian experience. Subsequently, each group shared their work, bringing together the discussions and insights from the past few days into a cohesive artistic expression. One of the participants volunteered to curate the final collection, which will be developed into a traveling piece to be displayed at the next workshop in the series in New York. 

The workshop concluded with a community lunch and a gratitude-sharing circle.