Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone sporting his face mask for the “Masks of Boston” project. — Photo by Katherine Taylor

By Rachel Berets

Throughout the month of June, The Somerville Museum will present a virtual exhibit, Masks of Boston by Boston-based photographer Katherine Taylor. Taylor’s Masks of Boston project features portraits of Massachusetts residents, including Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, with masks on against a black background.

Taylor, a photojournalist whose work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe, felt compelled to carry out this project after talking to family and friends about the many and varied experiences of people during the coronavirus epidemic.

“I realized that people were experiencing it really differently … that there was a lot of emotion, and so the idea was born to create this space to give agency to people specific to what they were going through, but with a format that was replicable,” said Taylor.

Taylor’s “replicable format” includes a black background and a three question interview, asking all participants to name a challenging aspect of COVID-19, an unexpected positive, and to express why they wear a mask. The answers vary. They are sometimes brief, sometimes longer, sometimes personal, and sometimes political. Taylor does not censor anything. “I feel like my job is to give people a voice,” said Taylor. 

The interview answers are almost as varied as the face coverings themselves. For Taylor, the masks provided an interesting creative challenge. “At first there was like this great relief because as a photographer, I’m always wanting something that’s not a super posed smile,” said Taylor. “I think that this has required that it’s a lot more emotive, body language, and it’s challenged me to push the images and push myself with my photography.”

One of Taylor’s youngest participants proved to her that portraits can convey emotion, with or without a mask. “I photographed an almost four month old baby and I smiled at her with my mask on and she just beamed up in a smile” said Taylor. “There is still so much emotion that is shown through people’s eyes.”

Ultimately, Taylor aims to give participants in the project a sense of agency and foster empathy. “I think at the most I want to help embody a little bit more empathy for each other,” said Taylor. “We’ve seen that there’s been particular groups that have been more heavily affected. The pandemic has not hit everybody equally, but to have this more subtle empathy for what this person is going through, what they are feeling, what they are thinking, how their social responsibility fits into it.”