developing a third eye
Blog 3: Project Outcomes and personal development
During the past 6 weeks i’ve been working on the “mask making and politics” project which was one of the projects I chose from the better lives unit.
Mask making and politics is essentially the idea of taking the concept of masks and politics and merging the two together to create a visual statement.
I chose this project because I really like the concept of masks on a visual and psychological scale even though this project is more visual but politics isn’t my strong point so I wanted to enhance that through this project.
Within the project I learnt about the history of masks, the role masks play and the different processes and materials that are used to create different masks as well as learning how to convey a message through making a mask.
The outcome for this project was to select a political movement or figure and create either 1-3 mask designs on that.
For mine I chose to do 3 mask designs based on the political movement “The Black Power Movement” of 1965 I decided to choose this because I found it interesting and because the issues that black African Americans faced then are still occurring in the 21st century and many people seem to turn a blind eye or try to invalidate the way black African Americans feel comes to racial issues and the way the government treats them, so I wanted to use this to raise awareness if words don’t work then I hope the power art and visual language will.
when I created these designs I went with simple designs incorporating key symbols and words using bold colours to bring light to the topic even though the black power movement was a serious thing. Adding colour also brings light into accepting the fact that being black is beautiful!
In the end my final outcomes came out well and I was able to achieve what I had envisioned. What I would have done better was focusing on what materials I would have used to create the masks and I focused more on the visual rather than the production. Overall I enjoyed the mask making and politics project it unlocked a new field for me that I would like to explore further if given the opportunity again the project also allowed me to apply the better lives themes I and through that I had a better understanding of how these three themes can be heavily involved iT really useful when I was making my masks. Within this Project and better lives unit in general my own personal development was a game changer because at first when I was creating things I was just doing it for the pure enjoyment and fun of it but now as I also have to find that balance of taking into consideration the three themes of: Diversity, social responsibility and sustainability making sure what i create is suitable not only to my standard but also the way people will perceive it.