Anxiety over invisible invaders encourages individuals to desire a barrier, to wrest back a feeling of control. The spike in face-mask purchasing and crafting in response to COVID-19 fears is not surprising. The efficacy and culture of masks as personal protective equipment has been investigated for over a century’s worth of diseases, including the 1910-’11 Manchurian plague (Lynteris), influenza (Chuang Cowling), SARS (Sin Syed), tuberculosis (Biscotto), and Ebola (MacIntyre et al.). Whether manufacturing, stockpiling, MacGyvering, sewing, 3D printing, or debating them, masks are (figuratively, if not literally) on everyone’s lips. Madeleine Mant // 2020 is the year of the mask.
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