Photographs by Anastasia Pottinger

The idea for this project came about when I peeked into the backseat of a friend's car to see their 4 year old in a tiny mask. It was the cutest thing I had seen and I could not stop thinking about it. That night on social media, I mentioned seeing him and that I should think about doing a project with kids in masks. I was flooded with responses of people offering their little ones to be photographed. I got to work and photographed as many as I could in 4 days and this is the representation of that work.

Since then, I have thought and thought about what I want to say about the images. I photographed each child quickly, just showing up, standing outside and composing the image with no instructions. I wanted to show the boldness or unease naturally represented in children this age. Parents were told to allow the child to wear whatever they wanted and to select their favorite mask. I explained I didn't want this to be a statement about masks in particular, but a representation of the moment.

Here we are. 2020 in America during a global pandemic. Our children are wearing masks. It is at once awful and cute.