We need to talk about viruses. Even if, especially because, no one wants to. As seen in the recent COVID19 pandemic and mpox outbreak, the fears and stigmas that get replayed every outbreak drives harmful stereotypes and misinformation, which prevents effective treatment, and ignores one of the core causes, ecosystem disruption. Meanwhile the number of viruses that potentially threaten humans is infinitesimal compared to the quadrillions without which life on this planet would be impossible — for instance, 10% of the oxygen in the planet’s atmosphere is the result of ocean metabolic process in which viruses play an essential role. In fact, viruses are not even out to get humans; they’re simply trying to multiply and survive, and if their human host dies it’s actually bad for them because they die along. This is why successful viruses tend to mutate to peacefully coexist with us. Rather than considering virus and infected people as dirty badly-behaved monsters, the human-virus relationship is better understood as a dance in which humans evolve their behavior and viruses evolve their genes, to reach a mutualistic cohabitation. In this fashion, viruses have played significant roles in human genetic evolution.

Viral Imaginaries is a design research project seeking to stimulate a nuanced conversation and appreciation of the complexity of viruses. It uses media analysis, ethnography, participatory storytelling, speculative fictioning, digital archeology, and performance, in its efforts to explore alternative post-human perspectives on the human-virus relationship. Current research is related to the 2022 Mpox outbreak.

The project started during the first lockdown in 2020 when infectious disease specialist Henry de Vries and design researcher Nadine Botha began exploring the colonial origins of COVID19 rhetoric through zombie movies. It won the 2020 Bio Art and Design Award, and was exhibited at MU Hybrid Art House (NL). Since then social designer Coltrane McDowell has joined the team.
The 2022 mpox outbreak blatantly demonstrated how stigma, geopolitics, colonialism, misplaced morality, and misinformation hamper effective outbreak management. Whereas the stigma was sadly predictable, remarkable and inspiring were mpox survivors who withstood the stigma and publicly shared their disease experiences through Tiktok and news media. The next iteration of Viral Imaginaries would like to champion these ambassadors of a future society in which illness carries no social or political stigma, and viruses are appreciated as a sometimes harmful, but nonetheless necessary, non-moralizing part of the planetary ecosystem.

Viral Imaginaries is inviting a number of these champions to participate in researching and creating alternative ways of appreciating the complexities of awe and fear that surround the virus. We anticipate co-developing a work that offers an inspiring vision of peaceable human-virus cohabitation, destigmatizes infection, and advocates the need for free access to the appropriate care for those affected.

Supported by Creative Industries Fund (NL).