As a consequence of the pandemic, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) must now greet visitors through their official website while its building within Berlin’s Tiergarten — known locally as the “pregnant oyster” — remains indefinitely closed. As someone who first visited the HKW three years ago, I now wonder how its epithetic shell will cope under the pressures brought upon by a global crisis. Undoubtedly, this anomalous situation requires the persistence and adaptability of the HKW, and by extension, virtually every museum, gallery, and cultural institution worldwide.

In an aptly timed response, the pandemic became the focal point for the HKW’s ambitious online exhibit called CC: World, which launched on June 25, 2020 as part of the centre’s ongoing New Alphabet project. Based on the title, CC: World is a digital space that explores the social, economic, and political impacts of the pandemic through a variety of letters in the form of videos, texts, and sounds. The exhibition involved over 30 international artists and researchers and is presented through a dedicated website — an exclusively online approach that mirrors the “new normal” of cross-cultural yet socially distant engagement.

While an ad hoc virtual exhibition may not be the most immersive format, the HKW does manage to make CC: World less two-dimensional than some might initially expect. A minor yet notable feature of the website’s design is the addition of a live background that changes its colour gradient according to the included weather metrics, which in turn are based on the location of each letter’s contributor. Another detail that is perhaps overlooked is the unification of the exhibition’s components into a single, continuous page; without any menus, subpages, or pop-up windows, the site ensures that the viewer has a full and uninterrupted experience.

Among the perspectives represented in the exhibition, the sensationalization of the pandemic is quite significant, likely because it has been conducive to generating by-products of mis- and disinformation, anti-social behaviour, and discrimination. Iraqi poet and scholar Sinan Antoon channels these criticisms in a letter written by a personified SARS-CoV-2 virus and addresses it to the influenza virus H1N1. Through satire, the coronavirus seeks guidance from one of its viral predecessors as it circulates among the Earth’s population. However, after observing humanity’s conflicting handling of the pandemic (particularly in the United States) along with its pre-existing social ills, the virus is left disillusioned and questioning its own existence at the end. Antoon’s writing achieves a balance of wit and earnestness that demands the reader to consider the pandemic not as an isolated crisis, but one that is rather intertwined with the stark realities of the status quo.

Elsewhere in the exhibition a four-part film series by American choreographer Meg Stuart approaches one of the earliest and burgeoning challenges brought by the pandemic: physical and social distancing. As many of us have already experienced, limiting close contact with others meant spending more time alone or within your immediate bubble; depending on who you ask, seclusion can either be appreciated or dreaded, or both. The restriction of activities that were once common have also substantially changed our relationships to spaces — whether they be public or private, familiar or unknown. Stuart’s first short film, The Lobby (2020), is a dynamic but somber reflection on this shift towards solitary living. The film’s solo dance sequences depict isolation as a performance, even in a world where we are literally and figuratively disconnected. For Stuart, our lone performances are repeated through the routines we create whereas our rare public performances are now primarily reserved for online spaces. The masked dancers’ erratic movements also seem to correlate with the unpredictability of the world’s current situation and its effects on the physical and mental well-being of those living in it.

While it may take a long while for the HKW to reopen its doors to the public (provided that the pandemic subsides), at present CC: World is one of the few exhibitions that injects a glint of hope for recovery and reform, both at a local and global level. Moreover, it reflects the resilience and tenacity of creative professionals in these times of deep instability and unease.