Local
Global
Cloud

COVID-19 Toolkit

We are pleased to present a 12-week program for living together in this unprecedented global health crisis, featuring a selection of projects and recordings from our archive.

You are welcome to move through this toolkit in any order, and listen to the recordings at whatever speed you wish—you can follow it week by week, or you can move through it more quickly or slowly. Our hope is simply to think together about what we can learn from the current crisis and how we might better prepare for future ones.

Return to Project Page  

This project has been organized around the fields of knowledge that structure our archives, but these fields of course can cross into other ones and, indeed, often must do so. Some of the featured projects and recordings are directly related to issues at the heart of our present crisis, while others can help us rethink our relation to matters of community, creativity, the arts, and each other.

Week 1: Health / Sustainability

Use the carousel feature to browse the five to eight selections for each week

Into Unknown Parts
Into Unknown Parts

A film program and conversation about indigenous life under colonialism and the politics of care

More »
Values
Folded Into Lives
Folded Into Lives

A conversation about the politics of listening and ethnography as an unfinished practice

More »
Values
State of Risk
State of Risk

A conversation about medicine's obsession with risk control and anticipatory treatments

More »
Values
The Politics of Race in America
The Politics of Race in America

A conversation with Jonathan Metzl, Dorothy Roberts, and Anthea Butler about Dying of Whiteness and the politics of racial resentment

More »
Values
The Language of Care
The Language of Care

A conversation with Rita Charon about the power of listening in medicine

More »
Values
Righteous Dopefiend
Righteous Dopefiend

A photo-ethnographic collaboration with Philippe Bourgois about homelessness, addiction, and poverty in urban America

More »
Values
Week 2: Social Justice
An ethics of no edges
An ethics of no edges

A lecture by George Yancy about the challenges of talking about racism today and methods for overcoming division and individualism in society

More »
Values
Public Lands, Private Hands
Public Lands, Private Hands

A gathering of tribal leaders and native community activists speaking about indigenous and settler land use and the Bears Ears National Monument

More »
Values
Gambling on Visibility
Gambling on Visibility

A conversation about the challenges of representing precarious life with Rosalind Morris and Ilisa Barbash

More »
Values
Nos Están Matando / They're Killing Us
Nos Están Matando / They're Killing Us

A documentary screening and conversation about the targeting killing of community leaders and human rights activists fighting for change in Colombia

More »
Values
Practicing Decolonization
Practicing Decolonization

A conversation about decolonizing strategies in and outside of art institutions and the academy

More »
Values
Trouble the Water
Trouble the Water

A documentary film directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal about Hurricane Katrina and a young couple who survive the flooding of their city

More »
Values
The River as it Could Be
The River as it Could Be

An investigation of future perspectives, engaging community, student and scholarly voices across Philadelphia

More »
Values
Week 3: Politics / Economics
The Counter Revolution
The Counter Revolution

A talk by writer and political analyst Peter Zilahy exploring the parallel universes of political thinking and the rise of far-right populism

More »
Values
Democracy Rising
Democracy Rising

A symposium and workshop about the politics of upheaval and the contradictions of democracy

More »
Values
Shadow World
Shadow World

A film directed by Johan Grimonprez that explores the international arms trade

More »
Values
Civic War and the Corruption of the Citizen
Civic War and the Corruption of the Citizen

A conversation with Peter Alexander Meyers and others on citizenship, violence, and the continuation of the Cold War

More »
Values
Democracy and Disappointment
Democracy and Disappointment

A philosophical exchange about the politics of resistance with Alain Badiou and Simon Critchley

More »
Values
Week 4: Aesthetics / Media
The Demonstrators Also Waited
The Demonstrators Also Waited

A conversation with Allan Sekula on the politics of occupation and the shifting relationship between photojournalism and global capitalism

More »
Values
War - Media - Art: The Image in Question
War - Media - Art: The Image in Question

A conversation with Harun Farocki and others on the re-appropriation of images and the representation of war and weaponry

More »
Values
The Neighbor Before The House
The Neighbor Before The House

A film program with Shaina Anand about surveillance systems, critical documentary filmmaking, and community participation

More »
Values
27 Years Without Images (on the Possibility of Cinema after Revolution)
27 Years Without Images (on the Possibility of Cinema after Revolution)

A series of programs with Eric Baudelaire about the relationship of activist cinema to revolution

More »
Values
Potential Histories of Photography
Potential Histories of Photography

An exhibition opening and lecture by Ariella Azoulay about the political implications of photography

More »
Values
Revisiting "Television"
Revisiting "Television"

A program exploring Jacques Lacan's 1973 broadcast and the relationship between psychoanalysis, spectatorship, and authority

More »
Values
Test The West
Test The West

A conversation with T.J. Clark about art and capitalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall

More »
Values
Week 5: Public Culture
Forum for Other Citizenships
Forum for Other Citizenships

A series of conversations about citizenship and other forms of belonging and kinship

More »
Values
The Days of the Commune
The Days of the Commune

Actors, activists and artists re-perform Brecht's Days of the Commune in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement

More »
Values
...Cairo stories: Public Programs
...Cairo stories: Public Programs

Conversations and screenings exploring notions of representation, history, subjectivity, and translation

More »
Values
Words from Home
Words from Home

A poetry series exploring the relationship between home, language, and the immigrant experience

More »
Values
Free Exchange
Free Exchange

A concert series exploring free and avant-garde jazz, and Philadelphia's rich legacies of musical improvisation and performance

More »
Values
Week 6: Design
Designing for Collective Action
Designing for Collective Action

A comparative discussion about design and civic engagement in Philadelphia, Santiago, and beyond

More »
Values
Conversations on Coexistence
Conversations on Coexistence

Anuradha Mathur, Amy Hillier, Teddy Cruz, and graduate students reflect on the intersection of communities, institutions and ecologies

More »
Values
On Community Building and Displacement
On Community Building and Displacement

Lectures and conversations about empowering communities through art and architecture

More »
Values
Talking To Strangers
Talking To Strangers

A conversation with Danielle Allen about social trust, citizenship, and institution building

More »
Values
Evasions of Power
Evasions of Power

Exploring overlooked urban zones, state borders and extra-territorial sites throughout the world, contributors probe contemporary perspectives on power and its evasions

More »
Values
Week 7: Community Development
The Shadow of the State: From Tyrone West to Freddie Gray
The Shadow of the State: From Tyrone West to Freddie Gray

A series of conversations about Baltimore and how photography and protest can challenge our perceptions of the ghetto

More »
Values
Original Rainbow Coalition
Original Rainbow Coalition

A conversation about the Chicago Black Panthers and Young Patriots Organization and collaborating across race and class in the 1960s

More »
Values
We are powerful.
We are powerful.

An evening of conversation with Philadelphia's top reentry experts, a group of formerly incarcerated individuals who power the Reentry Think Tank

More »
Values
Quest
Quest

A screening and workshop about community-driven art and the politics and pragmatics of partnering

More »
Values
Itinerant Belongings
Itinerant Belongings

An exhibition of artists who engage ideas of homeland and belonging and resist a unitary sense of time or place

More »
Values
Week 8: Philosophy / Theory
How to Live Together?
How to Live Together?

An artist project with Camille Henrot revisiting Roland Barthes' seminal lectures on coexistence

More »
Values
On Experiential Togetherness
On Experiential Togetherness

An exploration of connectedness and 'togetherness' through readings of William James, Alfred North Whitehead, and others

More »
Values
Art and Politics in the Time of Radical History
Art and Politics in the Time of Radical History

A conversation with Gabriel Rockhill and others about the social dimension of aesthetic practices

More »
Values
Care of the City
Care of the City

A conversation with Michael Stone-Richards and others about caring and the routines of habit which establish spaces as livable

More »
Values
Searching Looks
Searching Looks

A symposium exploring visuality, minority cultural studies, and Asian American visual cultures

More »
Values
Week 9: Artistic Legacies
Utterly Precarious
Utterly Precarious

A multi-part engagement with the life and work of Carolee Schneemann, whose work has continually probed the precariousness of nature, art, and life

More »
Values
Art and Society
Art and Society

A retrospective exhibition exploring the work of pioneering new media artist Fred Forest

More »
Values
The Truth in Photography
The Truth in Photography

An exhibition exploring the relationship of photography, literature and activism in the work of Hervé Guibert

More »
Values
Film as Critical Practice
Film as Critical Practice

A series of programs revisiting the legacy of the Situationist International and the film-theoretical cinema of Guy Debord

More »
Values
Things That Quicken the Heart
Things That Quicken the Heart

A two-day symposium exploring the work of Chris Marker, one of the most prolific and inventive media artists in the history of cinema

More »
Values
Rewriting History
Rewriting History

A lecture by Peter Weibel exploring art as a rewriting program for rethinking the relationship between self and society

More »
Values
Week 10: Pedagogy
Work Studies in Schools
Work Studies in Schools

An exhibition exploring Darcy Lange's research and work, which examined the processes of teaching and learning

More »
Values
Write my Future
Write my Future

A community conversation with author MK Asante about safety, agency, and the power of storytelling

More »
Values
What makes children safe?
What makes children safe?

A workshop and community initiative to create physical, emotional, relational, and social safety for children and youth

More »
Values
Humanities in Revolt
Humanities in Revolt

A conversation with Alastair Renfrew about the future of the humanities and higher education as a potential site of revolt

More »
Values
Is global literature possible?
Is global literature possible?

A conversation with Wang Ning about world literature, the politics of translation, and the afterlife of literary works

More »
Values
Week 11: Memory
Erasures
Erasures

An exhibition with Fazal Sheikh tracing the dispossessions and displacements of the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, and their impact on Palestinians, Bedouins, and Israelis

More »
Values
Promised Cities
Promised Cities

A seminar by Hélène Cixous about displacement, exile, and the relation of art and literature to cities and their destruction

More »
Values
Future Perfect
Future Perfect

A screening and workshop exploring future imaginaries from the New Right to the AfroFuturist Affair

More »
Values
Tense Future
Tense Future

A conversation about literature's engagement with the forms and temporalities of war

More »
Values
Straying: Diary of a Cold Universe
Straying: Diary of a Cold Universe

An exhibition retracing Walter Benjamin's winter movements of 1926 and their contemporary spatial and political resonances

More »
Values
Once Upon a Time
Once Upon a Time

An exhibition featuring photographs by Bessie McLamb of "ordinary" people in South Philadelphia from the 1940s through the 1970s

More »
Values
Memories/ Correspondences
Memories/ Correspondences

A conversation with Marcelo Brodsky about the role of memory in dealing with disappearance

More »
Values
Visualizing Extinction
Visualizing Extinction

A talk about the philosophical and psychological implications of the extinction of animals

More »
Values
Week 12: Performance
John Cage | How to Get Started
John Cage | How to Get Started

A permanent installation that features a rarely heard performance by John Cage, and will evolve over time through participation from the public

More »
Values
In Search of Eastman
In Search of Eastman

A series of conversations about the legacy and lost works of composer and performer Julius Eastman

More »
Values
Talking Back: Dance Response Project
Talking Back: Dance Response Project

Kyle Abraham and Carrie Schneider in conversation about choreography, film, and the politics of intimacy

More »
Values
Audio Culture
Audio Culture

A new music series situated at the edge of contemporary experimentation with sound, technology and new media

More »
Values
Musique Concrète Instrumentale
Musique Concrète Instrumentale

A conversation and concert with Helmut Lachenmann about the composition, musical languages, and unconventional playing techniques

More »
Values
Unplayable Music
Unplayable Music

A concert exploring the work of Conlon Nancarrow and the relationship between technology, temporality and performance

More »
Values
Revisiting Jelly Roll Morton
Revisiting Jelly Roll Morton

A piano concert with Dave Burrell exploring the transition from ragtime to contemporary jazz

More »
Values
Global Mix
Global Mix

An evening of performances by Marek Choloniewski, a celebrated composer of interactive electronic systems

More »
Values