Figures wearing masks, animal skins, horns or straw costumes roam through villages and mountains during celebrations that seem to exist outside of time.

American photographer Ashley Suszczynski has dedicated herself to documenting masquerade rituals around the world, in a project that began in 2019 when she started travelling through rural communities in Europe with her camera, driven by a fascination with ritual expressions that survive on the margins of the globalized world.

Since then, Suszczynski has travelled through dozens of countries to capture the symbolic and aesthetic power of these figures which, despite their ancient origins, continue to speak to the contemporary imagination.

Ashley’s work has been published in the pages of National Geographic, All About Photo, Photo District News, among other prestigious media outlets, and has received numerous international awards and accolades. Her exhibition “Ancient Tradition in the Modern Day” was the headline show at the 3rd Barcelona Photography Biennial and the 7th Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography.

With over 325,000 followers on Instagram (@maskedtraditions), the artist has built an international community captivated by the mystery, beauty and cultural resilience of these representations.

The Masked Myth presents a curated selection of images of European masquerades—an extraordinary catalogue of ancestral characters that parade in festive, liturgical or agricultural contexts, symbolizing order and chaos, nature, fertility, or fear.