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 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 masks 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 I want to reveal the mysterious reality behind the mask, a multiplicity of realities.