The facemask, once reserved primarily for woodworking and holdups, became an integral part of our lives in 2020. While many of us make do with the blue-and-white disposable standard, artists around the world have made artistic lemonade out of the lemon that is the pandemic. At the Museum of International Folk Art, an exhibition honors the creativity, humor, fashion and politics that have gone into not just face masks but also an array of responses to the COVID-19 crisis. #Mask: Creative Responses to the Global Pandemic runs through January 2023 and features face masks, textiles, sculptures and other works by artists and artisans from across the globe. The artists have drawn inspiration from their traditions and cultural heritage, creating works that delve into the meaning of “protection” in a time of devastating disease. Many works address the social implications of a crisis that has disproportionately harmed marginalized communities. “When the museum was closed for a few months because of the pandemic, we felt we should be doing something for our Gallery of Conscience when we reopened,” said Felicia Katz-Harris, senior curator at MOIFA. “A lot of our exhibits address contemporary social justice, but the Gallery of Conscience is focused on how folk art responds to issues in the world. What strikes me personally is that this pandemic, an unimaginable time in human history, is worldwide: everyone has been impacted by it. This made addressing it here even more pressing.” The catalyst for the mask exhibit was not actually a mask but a sculpture by Santa Fe santero Arthur López. “I got involved when the MOIFA former curator, Nicolasa Chávez, who is now the deputy state historian, saw a piece I created for the pandemic called La Sagrada Papel and contacted me to see if it was available,” said López. “It had already been purchased, so she asked me to re-create another one and they purchased that.” López had other works in mind, such as the piece that became Altar Vision 2020. “She wanted to acquire that for the collection,” López said, “and in that process started to discuss ideas about the pandemic and came up with this show.” La Sagrada Papel, a hand-carved wooden piece, depicts a roll of toilet paper with angelic rays emanating from it, as if the paper is a holy object. “The aura coming from the toilet paper is gold leaf and references how at the beginning of the pandemic, TP was a sacred commodity,” López said. “It’s done in the traditional way of a bulto: I use rabbit-hide glue that I boil myself. Then marble dust is stirred in, and the resulting gesso is painted over the wood.” Altar Vision 2020, López’s second contribution to the show, depicts a kitchen sink transformed into an altar to cleanliness, complete with hand sanitizer, soap and running water. A bottle of Corona beer — an on-the-nose offering to the various saints represented in the piece — sits to the left of the sink. “It’s a reflection on how the altar is a sacred place to cleanse you of your sins, and here it’s a literal cleansing station,” López said. “We’ve been washing our hands repeatedly, so the sink has become a sort of altar you stand at. You look out the window, and outside there are little coronaviruses floating in air. The altar incorporates all my thoughts about the pandemic. There’s a laptop, which [during the pandemic] became the primary source of socialization.” Naturally, masks feature in the show too. Some are purely art; some are wearable. One set of indigo wearable face masks comes from Santa Fe

tie-dye artist Gasali Adeyemo. “I was in Nigeria to visit my parents in January 2020, and I saw that people from China were wearing masks. Then I was in London and people were wearing masks, and I came back to the U.S. and there were no masks,” said Adeyemo. “Two months later I go back to Nigeria and everything is shut down. I didn’t realize then how quickly the virus had spread. I was lucky I didn’t catch it.” Adeyemo, his brother Dauda Adeyemo, and his friend I.B. Bayo immediately began to churn out face masks of their own, many of which they donated. “We ended up giving masks away to people in the community. ‘Just make sure to wear it,’ I said.” The cotton masks are washable and reusable. “The indigo we use is a natural color from the plant. It’s not toxic,” Adeyemo said. “When you wear the mask, you can breathe through something natural, organic, from a plant. The dye, indigo, is one of our Yoruba traditions. It’s a medicine. Even before we dyed with it, we used it as healing, for spiritual purposes. People ask if you drink it, and I say yes we do, like a tea. We also use it like a shower, to cleanse ourselves of bad spirits. We paint it on the walls. It has a long history. When people see me wearing my indigo, I let them know it’s deeper than blue. It’s no ordinary dye.” Several of the masks in the exhibit have a political message said KatzHarris. “The Black Lives Matter movement really came to a head during the pandemic,” she said. “The piece Harriet Tubman Conductor, by Denise A. Harrison, is a really interesting work by an artist who’s also a professor. She used quotes from various sources, including Harriet Tubman, and she included in the design a $20 bill, which speaks to the fact that Tubman was supposed to be on that bill.” The red, green and black on the mask represent the pan-African flag. The design also depicts a newspaper ad offering $300 for Tubman’s capture after she escaped slavery in 1849. “The other wonderful political piece is a mask called Unapologetically Asian by Julia Kwon,” said Katz-Harris. “There's so much about it that I love. She uses the Korean bojagi textiles, which is like a patchwork. It’s a traditional Korean art form. The piece is speaking to all the Asian hate crimes that were happening also during the pandemic. COVID brought out a lot of issues of racism, prejudice, and disparities in different communities.” A mask in the display that is meant to be both functional and political is Keffiyeh Cloth Face Mask. “Masks can be about political identity and a cultural identity, as well as protection,” said Katz-Harris. “This mask, made from keffiyeh cloth, was purchased at the Arab American National Museum’s gift shop at the beginning of the pandemic and came to us on loan.” The plaque next to the mask explains that the keffiyeh — a long scarf-like cloth once worn around the face and head as a simple form of protection against sun, dust and wind — became a symbol of resistance to the British administration of the Palestine Mandate in the 1930s. Non-mask pieces in the exhibit include tapestries, a dress, a quilt, a photo mural and a striking coronavirus piñata made by artist Francisco Rodriguez of Albuquerque. It dangles from the ceiling over visitors, both menacing and comical. Near the entryway is a slideshow of New Mexico-made masks that were entered into Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s statewide Mask Madness competition, which encouraged mask-wearing during the pandemic and highlighted the creativity of New Mexicans. About 100 of the 400 entries are included in the slideshow, which runs on a loop. Masks, like other forms of personal protective equipment, aren’t new. As the piece Plague Doctor Carnival Costume alludes to, people have been using masks and clothing as protection since long before they knew how infectious diseases were transmitted. The desire for protection from malign forces is old — and just as old is channeling that desire toward something beautiful, comical, or expressive of identity. “This show looks at how people respond in creative ways to a crisis,” said Katz-Harris. “It’s about how people draw on their culture and tradition to protect themselves and to protect others.” #Mask: Creative Responses to the Global Pandemic eloquently shows the innovative and delightful ways in which New Mexicans and artists from all over the world have risen to the challenge posed by the pandemic. We can only hope that by the time the exhibit closes in early 2023, the COVID-19 pandemic will be featured only in museums.