PHOTOS: Mexican Artists Create Fantastical Masks To Show The Many Faces Of COVID
Two professors invited indigenous artisans to make masks portraying the agent of the pandemic — the coronavirus — through the lens of their cultural traditions.
Masks are the emblem of the mystery man hero — think Zorro and Batman, the centerpiece of theatrical costume as in Japanese Noh plays and Phantom of the Opera. In their cultural context, masks are powerful ceremonial artifacts that obliterate the wearer's personality and change him or her into another being entirely.
The age of COVID adds yet another layer of meaning. When breath, the embodiment of life, becomes the carrier of death, a mask becomes literally a matter of life and death.
In April 2020, Blanca Cárdenas and Carlos Dávila, professors of ethnology at the
