Thomas Demand Princess, 2020

The work depicts a detail of the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship that gained notoriety when in early February 2020 several passengers were diagnosed with the novel coronavirus and Japanese health officials imposed a mandatory 14-day quarantine on the vessel which was then anchored in Yokohama, Japan. Aboard the ship were a total of 2,666 passengers and 1045 crew members whose daily activities were reported in worldwide news.

The image is part of a series produced in 2020 for the covers of the Italian architectural magazine DOMUS. The series depicts "architecture which got into trouble," as Demand puts it. These are designs which became symbolic architectural forms for current disputes without necessarily being built with any such intention.