Visual representations of the COVID-19 pandemic and its iconography on a local/global scale: Crossing borders between scientific and non-scientific imagery

Abstract

Understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic has been visually represented in both scientific diagrams and in non-scientific expressions, such as quickly propagating memes, both on a local and global scale, offers a glimpse of the ways in which the pandemic has been perceived and socially appropriated by diverse online audiences. In addition to analyzing the particularities of digital media and their ability to cross borders, an interdisciplinary perspective based on visual analysis and close looking—as seen through the scrutinizing eye of art history, in tandem with the double lens of microbiology and physics—provides a fresh outlook on the phenomenon of representation as a human form of engaging and coming to terms with a critical historical event, in particular, one that is triggered by an invisible phenomenon, a virus. Furthermore, a historical sense of the ways in which earlier pandemics have been represented provides a comparative lens for better understanding the specific situation of this particular pandemic and its unique iconography. Finally, a contrast between global and local forms of representation and circulation, by providing some specific examples from Colombia, one of the countries with the highest number of cases, underlines the ways in which imagery is infused with political connotations, with the power to both inform and disinform, depending on its use and context.