New York City MTA installed protective barriers in April, 2020.

Towards a Cultural History of Plexiglass

Shannon Mattern

Plexiglass table tents and plastic dividers aim to keep us safe amidst a viral pandemic. These measures seek to maintain social and biological order. They promise epidemiological and economic resilience. Yet they are little more than security theater.

Plexiglass dividers aim to keep us safe amidst a viral pandemic. But there is no perfect seal.

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Galleries

Columnists

  • Aaron Rothman
  • Naomi Stead
  • Alan Thomas

Aaron Rothman

Aaron Rothman is a columnist for Places. A monograph of his artwork, Signal Noise, is forthcoming from Radius Books.

Recent Articles

Naomi Stead

Naomi Stead is a columnist for Places. She is an architecture critic and Head of Architecture at Monash University.

Recent Articles

Shannon Mattern

Shannon Mattern is a columnist for Places. She is a professor of anthropology at The New School in New York City.

Recent Articles

Alan Thomas

Alan Thomas is a columnist for Places. He is Editorial Director for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Chicago Press and a photographer specializing in urban landscape.

Recent Articles

Series

Poems as Maps Series

Poems as Maps

Curated by Taiyon J. Coleman

Lines that trace and transgress boundaries of identity and experience.

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Summer Workshop