User:Michelle

DIGITAL CRAFT

MICHELLE LIEVAART

Fantastic Forgeries

This is a mask from Mali.

Mali is known for their traditional mask dances performed by important Dagon rituals connected with the dead.

The mask society, that exists only of men, performs the rituals.

The masked dancers come to the village to bring fertility and wisdom.

The Dogon are an agrarian people of about 600,000 who live in the west African country of Mali and Burkina Faso.

The Dogon are among the most famous iron workers in Africa.

In earlier times, Dogon craftsmen had perfected methods of refining iron ore into steel, and Dogon blacksmiths were renowned for their skillfully made tools and weapons.

Much of the ore refinement operations are gone now from Dogon society, the artisans relying instead on scrap steel salvaged from junk cars and railroads.

The deeper meaning of the kanaga mask apparently pertains both to God and to the arrangement of the universe. The disparity between these two interpretations illustrates the gaps in our understanding of Dogon art.

The usage of masks is as old as mankinds existence.

In countless cultures are masks part of different rituals.

By wearing the mask the wearer loses their own person and comes in contact with the spiritual world. The rituals where meant to prepossess the spirits for a good harvest or the cure of the ill.

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What intrigues me is that mask were used to loose your own person but they are often showing features of the human face in a deformed way.

By copying this mask in another material that is see-through I want to reveal the mystery behind the mask. Create multipal realities of what could be hiding behind the mask.

So instead of looking from behind the mask into the world, I will let the spectator view the world behind the mask.

What would the wearer look like? Why would he/she/it hide it's face? Why does the mask look like a deformed face? Is it actually deformed? What if that is their perception of beauty?

In a way we have always been fascinated by deformation, concrescence or weird injuries. Think about the old circusfreaks, people would pay a lot just to see them in real life.

But lust and disgust are very close to each other. Think about the girls born with malformations. These 'imperfections' makes them unique and they are receiving modelcontracts within the high end fashionworld.

'Schlitzie' Simon Metz

Melanie Gaydos

Chantelle Brown