Danse Macabre: a Covid‑inspired photograph by Lisl Ponger

When Covid began, Lisl Ponger turned her attention from everyday face coverings to masks more broadly, researching masked balls, carnival masks and the many outbreaks of plague in Venice. Her photograph Danse Macabre, inspired by the pandemic, hides small details: paper lamps in the ceiling contain Covid-19 viruses, and at the centre a doctor in a traditional plague mask dances with the rat that brought the plague.

Other figures carry layered meanings. A couple on the left references allegations that the Bolsonaro-led Brazilian government during the pandemic allowed many Indigenous people to die unnecessarily [he denied any wrongdoing] — the woman in a yellow hat represents an Indigenous person, while her partner wears a mask bearing the face of Pedro de Alvarado, the conquistador linked to massacres in 16th-century Guatemala.

Brazil, Guatemala, Venice

lisl ponger, danse macabre, covid-19, plague mask, masked balls, carnival masks, venice, bolsonaro, indigenous people, alvarado