This panel focused on disease, 2003, memories of loss and lessons we learned on the 16th anniversary of the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong. How do the doctors who were involved in treating patients at the time, remember this epidemic? How does a historian of diseases contextualise that year in the larger fabric of Hong Kong’s modern history? How does a curator of visual culture remember the materiality and ephemera left behind?

This panel invited Professor Joseph J.Y. Sung, gastrointestinal specialist who was the Chief of Service, Department of Medicine and Therapeutics,  Prince of Wales Hospital in 2003, founder of the Stanley Ho Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases, and awarded the Silver Bauhinia Star for fighting SARS to speak about his personal experience of 2003. Professor Robert Peckham, Director of the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, The University of Hong Kong who shared his research on histories of infectious diseases, epidemics, and global threats from a Hong Kong context. Finally, M+ curator Tina Pang, specialist in Hong Kong visual culture spoke on materiality, gender, and visible artists that were of focus in 2003 in Hong Kong.