In this article, we examine publicness during the pandemic, with a particular focus on the conditions it creates or constricts for engagement, solidarity and collective action. We interrogate the intensive publicness of the crisis to reflect on its assumed and established equation with progressive political possibility – transparency, accountability and democratic procedure. Theoretically, we cut into the contemporary ambiguity of publicness by putting it into conceptual dialogue with the idea of commoning, a notion that speaks to the resources and political consequences of coming together, and publicness not as coexistence and speech acts but as a domain of struggle. By considering the intersection of publicness and commoning, we aim to provide one way of thinking about how and when public revelation can be oriented towards material and political change. We propose three lines of examination: publicness without commoning; publicness with contingent commoning; and commoning without publicness.