While the pandemic will eventually pass, memory lasts forever. The year 2020 must be remembered by the human society, during which similar deeds and actions were taken to combat the coronavirus, a common enemy to all mankind. Such action transcends the limits of space, nation, race and religion.

　　As virus-induced pandemics spread due to people's movement, movement restrictions are taken throughout the world as the main means of controlling the pandemic. It pits reason against emotion to actively internalize such restrictions instead of passively following them. The wrestle gives birth to feelings and thoughts, which are invisible and visible at the same time. Images can express such feelings and emotions, and also wisdom.

　　In days when our movement was restricted, our city was in lockdown, and we were confined to our home, our mind and emotions, however, soared freely in the world of Internet. As birds return to sing in the trees in this silent spring, greetings, weeping, cries and praise are also heard constantly behind the windows. Window is spatial, somewhere between communication and seperation; it is a channel, for the exchange of information; it is also a runway for vision and the mind, where imagination is set free and reason returns. it is a microphone to send greetings and cries from the neighborhood to the community, from the city to the world.

　　The “Documenta 2020 - Windows In Pandemic” call-for-application focuses on the concurrent site and reality, and looks at both the past and the future. Its profound significance has made it popular, winning it widespread response from the world within two weeks after the call-for-application is issued. The collection includes works by well-known artists and journalists, and also by ordinary people. The massive amount of imagery information is no less than a sketched portrait of this major event. It is, at the same time, integrated and complex. Art museum is a safe place to store memories. Each exhibition is an exposure of history. Because of this, these files will never be rotten or forgotten.

Su Dan

Vice Director of Tsinghua University Art Museum

16 April 2020