Deity's Likeness

Art, war, carnival or cult - masks have two sides: They conceal and hide, and at the same time create new personalities, strange and captivating at once. So, too, do masks reveal world views of time and place: cult masks from Africa, mediaeval knight helmets, fantasy masks of famous film heroes like Darth Vader, or gas masks and VR glasses as modern functional objects.

In this new photo book, Russian photographer Olga Michi traces our millennia-old fascination with masks. Her expressive pictures place the masks centre-stage, creating a new, surrealistic aesthetic. With fascinating texts on each mask's cultural-historical significance, this high-quality photo book delights, informs, and ignites the imagination.

Text in English, French, German, and Russian.

100 colour illustrations

About the Author

Olga Michi was born in Havana/Cuba in a Russian family as the daughter of a military officer. She studied civil law and worked in the Russian Foreign Ministry at the Faculty of International Relations. Since then her fascination for history, politics and diplomacy has determined the direction of her travels and her professional photography training.

Today Olga works as a photographer on all continents, organised difficult expeditions to Central America, Africa and Indonesia, lived with indigenous peoples, dived with Nile crocodiles, white sharks and orcas. She is presenter and co-author of the Russian TV show Extreme Photographer, produced international award-winning documentaries and photo exhibitions. Her documentary film Small People. Big Trees received several of the most important awards at film festivals (Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, HumanDOC, EKOFILM, ...).