Masking Death

To ensure the safety of artists from Myanmar, for TERASIA Online Week 2021 held from November 19th to 28th, 2021, we showed a virtual art project in which artists and the audience/participants worked together without revealing their identities. A masked artist created and presented a video work using masks collected from participants around the world.

Creation Period: October to November 2021

Highlights

‘Why and when do you put on a mask?’ Today, masks are something we cannot live without in order to prevent the spread of the virus. In this work, Kamizu, a masked artist from Myanmar, poses a question about “masks” in a much broader sense. As we live in a community, we occasionally mask our attitudes and behaviors unconsciously, depending on the time and place. Moreover, at times we seek to manipulate situations by wearing masks in order to live or survive. Masking Death is a collaborative work created during the “age of isolation”, by the artist and participants who live in different places around the world, each of them drawing their own “masks for survival” with the use of an online app.

How to Make the Mask

Time required: about 25 minutes
Instruction video on how to make the mask:

Workshop Video

Yukari Sakata, Kyojun Tanaka, and Maho Watanabe of the TERASIA Japan team, and Rina Tanaka, theater sociologist and TERASIA follower, joined Kamizu to make their masks. Watch the video to get an idea of the process!
*This video is in Japanese.