We all live in a state of vulnerability – some more than others. As Judith Butler has argued, reclaiming this shared condition can be a route toward new forms of coexistence. Through two curated projects – a public program at MAAT, Lisbon and an exhibition at La Casa Encendida, Madrid – Vulnerable Beings proposes moving beyond modernist understandings of infection, which rely on the metaphor of a healthy body under attack by an external agent Instead, we argue that social and biological interactions are intrinsically founded on continual contact, frictions, and encounters.

Andrea Bagnato has been working for a decade on the interrelations between epidemics, urban space, and ecology from a southern European perspective.

Ivan L. Munuera is a New York-based scholar, critic, and curator working at the intersection of culture, technology, politics, and bodily practices in the modern period and on the global stage.