Masked—In the Year of the Plague

As a concerned citizen, I heeded the medical establishment and local officials’ advice to stay indoors as we learned to live with the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. As a creative communicator, I asked myself how I could comment on the current situation from this imposed distance.

I am reminded of a quote from Duane Michals, “Every event in my consciousness is stuff for my photographs. I can sit in my living room, and the universe comes to me.” These photographs are my reaction to the pandemic.

As a visual metaphor, I used the haunting bird-like masks worn by 17th-century plague doctors during the bubonic plague in parts of Europe. The mask's beak would be filled with aromatic herbs and spices to filter out
“evil” smells.

Those were dark times. The people’s leaders and doctors based a lot of their decisions on pseudoscience.

In 2020, we witnessed another “plague,” and President Trump and other leaders refused to be informed by modern science. Those were dark times
as well.

I don’t view these masks as symbols of doom—like the Grim Reaper—or, conversely, as the skull masks used in Mexico’s Day of the Dead festival to honor the deceased. Instead, I see these pandemic masks as an exaggeration of the face coverings we wore to help prevent the spread of the contagion and as a reminder of the over 1,238,189 lives lost in the United States alone.