RMCA publications

Featuring 180 outstanding masks, many of them photographed and published here for the first time, and works by contemporary African artists, this engaging book offers a new interpretation of the mask as a universal object that both hides and reveals.

By examining the use of masks in dances, rituals and the belief system they serve and represent, the book explores both their physical and symbolic roles as objects that are devitalized when taken out of their context but that nevertheless prompt questions about identity, self-esteem and conceptions of the Other in Western society.