Flattening the Curve of Visibility: Bodies-in-Suffering and COVID-19 in Brazil

Why did the COVID-19 pandemic, despite its global scale and devastation, fail to produce a defining iconic image? This article argues that this absence is not a failure of representation, but a consequence of the collapse of spectatorial distance on which iconicity depends. While wars and humanitarian crises have often been remembered through singular, emblematic photographs, COVID-19 positioned individuals simultaneously as spectators and potential sufferers, disrupting the separation required for suffering to be externalised and stabilised. To theorise this shift, the article further develops the concept of bodies-in-suffering , which foregrounds embodied, affective, and relational forms through which suffering becomes perceptible beyond visual condensation. Rather than appearing as singular images, suffering emerges through dispersed and unstable forms such as voice, breath, gesture, and interruption. Empirically, the article analyses testimonies from Brazil’s COVID-19 Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI), where denial and witnessing collided. It shows how embodied disruptions within a formal institutional setting rendered suffering publicly perceptible through moments that exceed bureaucratic containment. The article contributes to visual politics in International Relations by rethinking visibility beyond iconic images, showing how suffering becomes politically consequential when spectatorial distance collapses.