Healthy Scepticism in the time of Covid-19: Evidence and Expertise

HS collaborators Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, Fellow in the History of Health (Strathclyde); Agnes Arnold-Forster, Historian of Healthcare and the emotions (Roehampton); Geoffrey Rees, Associate Professor in the Humanities (Chicago) and mixed media artist; Helmie Stil, filmmaker;  A.R. Hopwood, artist and curator; Lucas Canino, writer and photographer; and Caitjan Gainty, HS Project PI, have won funding as part of the King’s College, London King’s Together COVID-19 scheme to pursue a series of HS themed mini-projects. These will focus on contemporary crises over evidence and expertise via one object – masks; one government directive – ‘sheltering in place’ or quarantining; and one pressing question: how do we parse scientific knowledge, judging what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong,’ when considering scientific evidence in a pandemic?  We use these projects to trial a mixed research methodology - in collaboration between artists and academics - and hope to contribute meaningfully to the current worldwide debriefing and digesting of our recent shared experience as well as asking what current events might have to say to the longer-standing issues of how to understand evidence and expertise in modern health and healthcare narratives. We hope these projects will result in an in-person exhibition in June 2021 if pandemic permits, but keep an eye on the website for the products of these partnerships over the shorter term.