Contagious Cities exhibition in Hong Kong captures fear and paranoia evoked by diseases like Sars

The sanitising hand towels being distributed near the entrance to “Contagious Cities: Far Away, Too Close”, the new art exhibition at JC Contemporary in Hong Kong’s Tai Kwun heritage and arts centre, are not just there for public health.

Instead, the lemony scented cloths are a nod to the hygiene habits that are a part of daily life in Hong Kong – habits that exhibition curator Ying Kwok says were adopted after the city became ground zero for the spread of the global Sars epidemic in 2003.

“It’s the tiny little things that always remind us, such as how people regularly clean lift buttons or how people didn’t wear [face] masks before Sars,” she says. “It had actual impact on life and on work. Even though it’s a distant memory, we still do feel it in many ways.”

The social and emotional impact of the deadly epidemic was the inspiration for the exhibition, which is part of an international “Contagious Cities” project – a series of exhibitions and events in New York, Geneva and Hong Kong – organised by the UK-based Wellcome Trust. The biomedical charity is best known for co-founding the Human Genome Project and for its large museum collection of art and medical artefacts.

The project examines the relationship between “microbes, migration and the metropolis” through art, science and history. The opening of the Hong Kong art exhibit, and an accompanying heritage exhibit, at Tai Kwun last weekend kicked off six months of events in the city as part of the initiative.