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(After being diagnosed with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, Robert Daniels was incarcerated in the jail unit of an Arizona hospital, locked up in a murky legal terrain where the bounds of individual civil rights and public health are tenuously demarcated. For a little over a year starting in July 2006, he lived under what could be described as inhumane conditions: 24-hour surveillance, lights always on, no TV, no way of contacting the outside world except a pay-phone and one tiny window looking out to some dull hallway. Other doctors then determined that he didn't have XDR-TB after all. Photo by Danielle Levitt for Details.)

If you're in New York in the next few weeks, consider stopping by Storefront for Art and Architecture for Landscapes of Quarantine, an exhibition curated by Geoff Manaugh, of BLDGBLOG, and Nicola Twilley, of Edible Geography.

Typically, quarantine is thought of in the context of disease control. It is used to isolate people who have been exposed to a contagious virus or bacteria and, as a result, may (or may not) be carrying the infection themselves. But quarantine does not apply only to people and animals. Its boundaries can be set up for as long as needed, creating spatial separation between clean and dirty, safe and dangerous, healthy and sick, foreign and native—however those labels are defined.

As a result, the practice of quarantine extends far beyond questions of epidemic control and pest-containment strategies to touch on issues of urban planning, geopolitics, international trade, ethics, immigration, and more. And although the practice dates back at least to the arrival of the Black Death in medieval Venice, if not to Christ’s 40 days in the desert, quarantine has re-emerged as an issue of urgency and importance in today’s era of globalization, antibiotic resistance, emerging diseases, pandemic flu, and bio-terrorism.

An opening reception will be held this week on Tuesday, March 9. It's free and open to the public.


(Poster for Landscapes of Quarantine.)

Meanwhile, we did some curating again and hashtagged 10 relevant posts: #quarantine.

(Thanks to Geoff for the photo of Robert Daniels.)