Phyllis Galembo’s New Book Offers a Rare Glimpse Inside the World of Mexican Ritual Dress

Phyllis Galembo’s fascination with masks and ritual dress started when she was just a child trick-or-treating on the streets of her Long Island neighborhood and has taken her all over the world—to Cameron, Zambia, India, Brazil, and beyond—in the last 20 or so years. Her new book, Mexico, Masks | Rituals, brings the New York photographer closer to home, on a magical journey across the border in search of the centuries-old traditions of the indigenous and Mestizo cultures. “When I started going there in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there were no hotels in places like Tulum,” says Galembo who has vivid memories of the first fiesta she was invited to in the Riviera Maya, specifically the distinctive embroidered blouses known as huipiles worn by female revelers. “About 10 years ago around Easter time, I suddenly got this weird inkling that I really needed to go back.”

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