Maske by Phyllis Galembo

New York-based artist PHYLLIS GALEMBO has been documenting masquerade and carnival-based practices around the world, and she is most celebrated for images taken in West African countries and also Haiti, where she has traveled annually for the past decade to work in Jacmel. By returning to certain places over a period of several years, Galembo has developed an understanding with some of the more secretive societies in Sierra Leone, Mali, and Burkina Faso, and this has enabled her to document carnival costume and masking practices from a broad spectrum of groups covering an immense geographical area. After years of photographing indigenous cultures, Phyllis Galembo has compiled her new book MASKE, which shows traditional masquerades from Africa. 
Galembo's photographs of African masks in their figural resplendence make one wonder with great regret what visual and artistic knowledge of masking in Africa is now forever lost. Masking is one of the most complex and secretive, yet profoundly important, phenomena in Africa.
Here are some excerpts from MASKE.

Makishi Masquerades

Zambia

Animal and Spirit Masquerades

Burkina Faso

Masquerades of Cross River

Nigeria

Gelede and Egungun Masquerades
Benin

Maske will be released on October 16, 2010

Courtesy Phyllis Galembo and publisher Chris Boot

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Masquerade, a Decade by Phyllis Galembo

For more than a decade, Phyllis Galembo has been traveling to Africa and the Caribbean to photograph ritual performances and celebrations. Some of Galembo's most striking work comes for Haiti, and in the last 14 years, she has visited the island almost annually.
" Haiti is just an amazing place, I don't know whether it's the survival mechanisms they have in music and art, but there is a very special energy there that is hard to describe, "she says.
Phyllis Galembo has captured images of voodoo ceremonies under Haitian waterfalls, masquerades in Zambia and kings and queens in Nigeria.
" I think in all societies, people like the opportunity to express themselves through virtual, or through dress,"she says.

Haiti

West African Masquerade

Images courtesy of Phyllis Galembo

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Louis Vuitton: Out of Africa

Another beautiful ad campaign..... Ready to go on a safari with the latest Louis Vuitton campaign that was shot in Africa with model Dree Hemingway (Ernest's great-granddaughter). The catalogue made for Louis Vuitton 2010 Travel Collection is simply superb with a lovely setting, tents, lion cubs, campfires and sunset..... It has it all !!

See previous post on interesting Ad Campaigns

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