Immune Nations
  • About
  • Participants
  • Works
    • Anatomy Table & #Infodemic
    • Antisocial Distancing
    • Conversations with Vaccine-Critical Parents
    • Design for a Dissemunization Station
    • Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic
    • The Vaccination Picture
    • The Vaccine Archive
    • Upstream the Cold Chain
    • VacZineNations!
  • Exhibition History
  • Events
  • Publications

Upstream the Cold Chain

Project leader:  Jesper Alvaer  | Advisor:  Johan Holst

​
Single Channel Video, 2017

Picture
Picture

Following a group of young scientists / healthcare professionals from their practical health work in the Global South to a conference on Global Vaccination in Norway, this single-channel video gathers local narratives on vaccine access — specifically the experience of navigating the temperate supply chains that are needed for vaccines to remain effective — and juxtaposes footage from the Global South with so-called “first world” footage in order to consider the “cold chain” both practically and allegorically.

Images by Ramos Mboane.
Rethinking “Upstream the Cold Chain” in the Era of Covid-19
“Is it ok that I walk with you?”
“Yes, come along,” the other replied.

They started to move in a slow circle, as if going for a walk, and continued:
“Where are we heading?”
“We are going back to the village.”
“What to do there?”

“Look: there is a goat coming this way. It seems to carry something.”
“Yes, it has a letter around its neck.”
“I will have a look.... oh, I forgot my glasses. Can you please read it? What does it say?”

The other took up the challenge and invented a letter from the goat: ​“Go across the river and take the smaller path to the village. We are having other guests, so wait and watch from the hill until you get more information”.​
​Rethinking Upstream the Cold Chain three years after its initial production, I see the film as a methodological creative device that enables discussion on vaccine distribution and access, allegorically and materially. Using structural global inequality as a starting point for poetic or artistic investigation, the project highlights the degree to which the era of COVID-19 has confirmed and further widened gaps in terms of access and distribution and consolidated once more those implausible movements upstream. 

— Jesper Alvaer, August 2021

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • About
  • Participants
  • Works
    • Anatomy Table & #Infodemic
    • Antisocial Distancing
    • Conversations with Vaccine-Critical Parents
    • Design for a Dissemunization Station
    • Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic
    • The Vaccination Picture
    • The Vaccine Archive
    • Upstream the Cold Chain
    • VacZineNations!
  • Exhibition History
  • Events
  • Publications