I'm of mixed descent and I was interested to include my cultural background onto my graduation project. During my research I searched for similarities between my two cultures, which resulted in masks. One culture used masks as a sign of distinctive identity between the different tribes, the other during the most special festival of the year. This is how Masked project was created. Within this 28 Days Challenge I decided to look upon different tribes worldwide and get inspiration from their clothing, shapes, colors and materials. Based on this research I have created new abstract masks that identify the varieties of cultural backgrounds and their tribes.
As a tradition believers, I myself belong in Bantu tribe. That means that every tribe members wore symbolic ornaments, attire and that appeals to me that they behold meanings behind every detail. Through the noticeable feature in a person, you can try to describe the origin of that particular tribe. Based on certain elements, can indicate whether the tribesmen for example; are married, the fertility, whether they have children, the wealth, status ect., each ornament tells you a personal story. After the 28 Days Challenge I developed the following masks in which it evolved to the following experiment...
However this experiment haven't became the end result of my Graduation project, but instead a research of interest. It's my ground inspiration that have led me to the following final project...