Scope and arrangement
The COVID-19 face masks collection holds fifty-six face masks. Masks from political campaigns, labor unions, artists, students, and ateliers are present.
A number of the masks were created by indigenous artists using traditional textile techniques, such as weaving, embroidery, and collaging. Nations represented include the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Cherokee Nation and Otoe-Missouria tribe, the Muscogee Creek Nation, the Mazahua people, and a collective of indigenous women from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Some organizations and causes, represented via the messaging and designs of the masks themselves, include Black Lives Matter, trans rights, queer visibility, body inclusivity, immigrant rights, statements against anti-Asian discrimination and violence, and both pro and anti mask mandate messaging. The collection also includes masks made from scrap fabric from the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
A majority of the masks were intended to be worn as safeguards against the spread of disease, but the collection also contains art pieces that utilized the form of medical masks as a base. Austrian artist Matthias Kretschmer created a sculptural mask and ears based on the eponymous alien from the American sitcom ALF. Janna Kennedy-Hyten, a Florida-based artist, designed pieces based on Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night and Henri Magritte's The Son of Man.
Of particular note is the mask worn by Doctor Yves Duroseau, who was the first doctor—and the second health care worker in the United States—to receive the COVID-19 vaccine (Pfizer) as Lenox Hill Hospital's chief of emergency medicine.
Also of note are two snorkeling masks that Italian start-up Isinnova and engineer Mario Milanesio repurposed into non-invasive ventilators for COVID-19 patients. Milanesio designed a 3D-printed respiratory valve fitting for the masks during March 2020, when hospitals faced an international shortage of respirators amidst unprecedented demand.
In addition to the mask worn by Dr. Duroseau, the Scott Stringer campaign mask was also worn and used. These two are likely the only masks in the collection that were worn.
Artist statements, business cards, correspondence, and other ephemera that arrived with the masks are housed separately in Box 1.
Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically by creator or artist name.