Democracy and proper drains
Snow’s discovery started the idea of public health, as opposed to individual medicine, and thus paved the way for the whole modern global-health apparatus. But it is often forgotten that it took not a doctor but a civil engineer, Joseph Bazalgette, to build the interceptor sewers along the banks of the Thames that ended cholera in London once and for all, and that Bazalgette himself relied on the reforming zeal of an increasingly democratic approach to politics that pervaded Victorian Britain.
As far as non-transmissible diseases are concerned, Snow’s modern successors have already done their work. The physiological causes of these diseases are understood. What is needed is modern Bazalgettes who can devise ways to build health into the social and physical infrastructure, in the way the Victorians taught the world to build water pipes and sewers not merely as conveniences, but as lifesavers.
Editor's note: This piece has been modified to make the point that deaths from malaria, as well as those from HIV, are now on a downward path. Sorry the original did not make this clear.
Of wool, silk and swings
THE Park Avenue Armory seems to be crazy for cloth. In 2009, Ernesto Neto, a Brazilian artist, hung an otherworldy web of Lycra filled with the aroma of spices from the ceiling. In 2011, the American Folk Art Museum displayed 650 red-and-white quilts, a dream-like celebration of American stitching. This month it is home to "the event of a thread" a new large-scale installation by Ann Hamilton, an American visual artist. At its centre is a stunning floor-to-ceiling sail of white silk. Something about a space as big, empty and hard as the Armory must inspire an urge to hang soft cloth.
The cavernous space, formerly a drill hall in the 20th century, was transformed into a cultural centre five years ago. The hall is nearly a city block in size and several stories high—its emptiness is its singularly impressive offering. Ms Hamilton has thrown open the shutters on the many windows and doors, letting light pour into this dark interior, and created an ode to reading, writing and weaving.
At a table near the entrance, two men wearing grey wool coats holding silver microphones sit surrounded by homing pigeons in boxes. They are reading concordances, or word indexes, from a text by Aristotle on long scrolls. Their voices are broadcast to speakers hidden inside brown paper bags dotted around the space. One of the delights of the show is picking up a bag, or being handed one by a stranger, and feeling the paper resonate with a human voice. The scrolls slowly tumble onto the floor while the pigeons watch anxiously.
At the far end of the room a desk faces the open door to the street (rarely, if ever, has the Armory opened this door in an exhibition). Here, a woman writes private letters, to be read in some distant future by the artist (possibly to animals at the zoo, Ms Hamilton said). When this correspondent visited, the woman was addressing them to "Far". "Dear Far…"
“the event of a thread” is about the passage of information, which includes the reading men, the writing woman and the audience. In the middle, 42 interconnected swings hang on long chains from the ceiling. Visitors are encouraged to take a ride. As they glide, ropes which connect the swings tug them so they swing in unison or at odds with one another, dragging strangers together and apart, pulling kinetic messages back and forth. This collective action wafts the white silk cloth, as big as a parachute, at the centre of the installation. A few times each day, a singer emerges on a balcony and fills the space with a delicate aria, while small bells and reeds hidden in the wirework chime and wheeze.
Read one way, this multi-sensory experience celebrates analogue pleasures. The swings are made from tactile wood and metal, they are childish playthings for adults. Men read ancient scrolls. Paper parcels are tied with string and sealed with wax. A sail blows in the wind like laundry on a line. But from a more contemporary angle, the installation could be a social network or an internet of connections—a representation of a city block, filled with anonymous residents pushing and pulling one another, while information streams around them.
The wonder of the Armory is that its installations can become ecosystems of their own within its massive chamber. Ms Hamilton, who called this project a gift to the city, has built a dynamic world in which the viewer can consider his or her interaction with strangers, cosseted from the bustle of the city.
Taking over the world