COVID Exceptionalism was an interdisciplinary, virtual unconference focused on the intersection of public health, technology, and the arts and humanities. This event and companion online archive aimed to critically reflect on the present moment both as a mirror of systemic inequalities—race, gender, class—and as a means of radical transformations –educational and economic, scientific and medical, cultural and interpersonal.

This virtual unconference aimed to interrogate the structural social underpinnings that the pandemic has exposed as well as the extraordinary social transformations that it has set in motion. What is exceptional about COVID? And for whom? What has truly changed, and what is being revealed for what it always was? Which of the profound changes to our modes of life should be fought, and which should be accepted as a change for the better? What new technologies, living arrangements, modes of governance, and models of care have emerged, and will they outlast this critical moment in our history?

The unconference took place on Saturday, May 15th. It was distinct from a traditional conference in that all attendees had the opportunity to participate in interdisciplinary discussions and performances, in an open forum in which to reflect on the wider implications of the Covid-19 pandemic.