Ancient african masks - Commercially-produced masks

Commercially-produced masks

Business masks on the market a in a store within the Mwenge Makonde market, Dar es Salaam

As African masks are largely appreciated by Europeans, they're extensively commercialized and offered in most tourist-oriented markets and retailers in Africa (in addition to "ethnic" retailers within the Western World). As a consequence, the normal artwork of mask-making has regularly ceased to be a privileged, status-related apply, and mass manufacturing of masks has turn into widespread. Whereas, usually, business masks are (kind of trustworthy) reproductions of conventional masks, this connection is weakening over time, because the logics of mass-production make it more durable to determine the precise geographical and cultural origins of the masks present in such venues as curio retailers and vacationer markets. For instance, the Okahandja market in Namibia largely sells masks which are produced in Zimbabwe (as they're cheaper and extra simply out there than native masks), and, in flip, Zimbabwean mask-makers reproduce masks from nearly in all places in Africa quite than from their very own native heritage.