2020 is a year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. It all started at the beginning of the year with individual cases in China. In February and March, the pandemic began to spread very rapidly in Europe, the US and around the world. The pandemic not only caused thousands of deaths, but also changed the lives of many people. As a global event, everyone has experienced it and continues to do so as the virus spreads again this autumn, prompting governments to take radical action.

The exhibition concisely sums up Egger’s thoughts about events these last (and maybe next) months. The COVID-19 epidemic has indeed abruptly changed millions of people’s lives, for better or worse. Unimaginable situations and possibilities have arisen, and the unimaginable has happened. Some think our world and our relationships have altered quite radically, though whether there has been a real change, whether we have learned our individual and social lessons from the lockdown, still remains to be seen. Much would appear to have remained unaltered, yet plainly we are now all set for a ‘before COVID-19’ and an ‘after (or with) COVID-19’. Now in autumn, the pandemic is back in all its strength.

Will we survive this pandemic? If so, how? Can we develop a new and better world from this worldwide crisis? If so, what kind? Or will the world remain as it is, only getting worse as inequalities increase? What is destined to remain and what to fade?

Everything's changed and nothing's changed…