Masks

The project Masks (since 2020) is a visual research of the question “How many second I do we have?”. Based on the dramaturgical sociology of Erwing Goffmann and theory of wearing masks in everyday life I’m looking for many of my second I.

Masks are in fact self-hybridizations of a woman’s (and generally human’s) natural appearance with what she/he is expected to look like by “society”. But who or what is a “ society” here? An abstract entity that is impossible to encompass nor comply with. And yet, so many people are eager to satisfy the society’s expectations, considering them natural, without even thinking about the root concept, which yields just the opposite – artificiality in behavior and restraint in personal freedom.

The sociologist Robert Ezra Park wrote in his text Race and Culture (1950) this idea which describe my topic in the best possible way:

“It is probably no mere historical accident that the word person, in its first meaning, is a mask. It is rather a recognition of the fact that everyone is always and everywhere, more or less consciously, playing a role… It is in these roles that we know each other; it is in these roles that we know ourselves. […] In a sense, and in so far as this mask represents the conception we have formed of ourselves – the role we are striving to live up to – this mask is our truer self, the self we would like to be. In the end, our conception of our role becomes second nature and an integral part of our personality. We come into the world as individuals, achieve character, and become persons.”