COVID-19 has impelled me to remember and represent past epidemics. Manipulating a panoramic taken at Grosse-Île, Canada, I speak to the almost despairing medical care given to immigrants arriving with cholera, dysentery, and typhus through the 1800s. The cholera room, lit with a patient-tolerated red light, opens onto a passageway leading to white light and potential escape beyond.

Pam Patterson has, over the years, had an active and varied career in art from directing the Fibre Exchange at The Banff Centre, to teaching in education at the Art Gallery of Ontario and now working as Assistant Professor in Cross Disciplinary Art Practices at OCADU, as research fellow at NSCAD, and as Artistic Director for the feminist community-based program WIAprojects where she curates exhibits, program events, and publish monographs. As a queer disability performance and visual artist, she has exhibited and performed across Canada and internationally, solo and as ARTIFACTS with Leena Raudvee. Her current visual work, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, explores “COVID 19 Anxiety” and, in performance in pandemic isolation, she collaborates with UK artist Alisa Oleva on international WhatsApp walks.