A research project for the exhibition 'GEO—DESIGN: COVID-19. Travelling without moving'. Membranes uses mechanisms native to the world of cellular biology as metaphors to analyse social divisions in transition. Membranes provides an analytical reading of the complexity of human behaviours in an acute crisis situation, the COVID-19 pandemic. The project challenges designed divisions on a variety of scales, highlighting the human need for security in the context of an incomprehensible situation and its instrumentalization for political control. The metaphor of the biological membrane provides a framework to grasp the problematic, reflecting Timothy Morton’s thoughts on the ‘Hyperobject’. Across all scales, Membranes are separating, while simultaneously, connecting entities.