MAPS OF A NEW REALITY

Death is the connecting thread between ancient Roman masks and recent surgical masks. Both types of masks deal with identity: the historic ones preserve while the contemporary ones conceal.

- QUDDUS MIRZA

The idea of impending death and disappearing identity has haunted everyone, including me in these times of Covid-19. Especially on seeing the footage of hospital wards, reports of final rites, and pictures of burial sites, in which the death or the dying patients are handled like unknown entities, with no family, friends, or followers allowed to be around or mourn. The isolation of an individual, whether diagnosed with Coronavirus or conscious of not catching the disease, made me realize that facemasks, portrayed in Ayaz Jokhio’s Masked Portraits are maps of our new reality.