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Metalsmith, Sculpture, Instalation Artist
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Global Masquerade invites people to interact with suspended masks and learn about global climate change. Each mask allows the individual viewer to realize their participation in the global warming problem, while at the same time envisioning a solution. This work targets humanity’s need to make changes to benefit the planet.
Masks can be as beautiful as wearing them to a masquerade and just as easily to hide behind them. A lot of politicians wear more of a metaphorical mask to shy away from the problems that they don’t want to confront. Our current government is defunding very important organizations so that they don’t have to deal with what they don’t want to know. In other words, without NOAA, the Official Wild Life Cervices, EPA, Department of the Interior, and many other primary institutions means that there is a huge loss of information to keep animals from being extinct or give people important information about what is happening to our planet and what we can do to fix it. The intent of these masks is to juxtapose the idea of hiding behind a mask to avoid the issues and instead confronting them by putting them on and doing something about it.
Through masks, one is able to see themselves through the mirrors and realize that even though all the masks represent different subjects they are still all part of one big obstacle and it is up to us to choose where we want to begin making a difference. Six masks are linked together in a webbed string formation, which unites in an octagon arrangement. The viewer sees their reflection by looking through the mask into a mirror that stands within the octagon center. Each mask represents a different ecological concern that are part of a larger obstacle. The arrangement allows the viewer to select which problem to address. Robert MacArthur wrote about science repeating patterns in organic shapes, plants and animal life in his theory of Patterns, Models, and Predictions. Current patterns in climate change affect plants and animals negatively; it is imperative that this cycle is broken.
All the strings that hold the masks may seem very random, but they all connect and hold the masks in place. Just like in A Thousand Plateus by Gilles Feli and Deleuze Guattari the strings represent cartography and decalcomania. They are like a map. One can start at any place they want to make a change because there is no beginning or end. The connection and heterogeneity explains how any point can be connected with one another no matter how similar or different they may be. The strings represent more than just a way to suspend the masks, they bring everything together like the circle they are displayed in and the planet we live on. It is up to us to change people’s minds in how we want to take care of this planet. So how will you begin to make a change?