The 2021 soft launch of the post-pandemic new normal in places around the world came to its full fruition in 2022 with the return of in-person art fairs and major loan exhibitions. But after three years of canceled exhibitions and festivals, online-viewing rooms and Zoom conversations, alongside a reckoning with the colonial histories and systemic issues amplified by the pandemic—ever-growing wealth inequality, the escalating climate crisis, and tsunamis of disinformation—what did this transition look like?

In City Reports, we get a survey of what this readjustment period looked like in different parts of globe from 14 writers and interviewees. While most can agree that we are now in the “post-pandemic” era, the journey to this point has varied dramatically from city to city, nation to nation, with some jurisdictions ending their restrictions sooner than others. At the time of writing, it was just announced that Hong Kong, where ArtAsiaPacific is based, is starting to bid farewell to some of the last remaining Covid-restrictions and began closing the chapter on almost three years of Kafkaesque hurdles for its residents and visitors.