The Mask Project

“I initially started making face masks for friends and family when South Africans were first introduced and then required to wear them in public, and there was still a shortage of them in the country. As I fabricated countless masks and trying to capture the personality of the intended wearer with my choice of fabrics and trims, the reality of a masked society started dawning on me. I couldn't help but fantasise about how these objects would integrate into our daily lives—pictured them becoming an extension of fashion and flesh. The elaborateness of the masks transforms them into objects which blurs lines between objects of functionality, art, craft and fashion. Inevitably, these masks become props for a masquerade which can hopefully distract from the spectacle of a world riddled with a pandemic.”

Ancient Reckoning by Ashraf Jamal

In African cultures masks are never decorative playthings, they connect one to the spirit world. A mask is a sacred medium between this world and the next. The appropriation of African masks by Western artists – Picasso is a famous case in point – resulted in a deactivation of their deeper value. African masks were never solely an innovative resource for art, but protective conduits between the known and the unknown.
Given our current pandemic, the mask has proved prophetic in its importance. It not only shields us from danger, it reminds us to be vigilant. Awareness is far more than simply a practical matter; it carries a deeper significance. The photographs by Nonzuzo Gxekwa, which showcase the masks created by Pierre le Riche, speak to this more complex understanding of the role of masks in African life.

Traditionally used in rituals to ensure a good harvest, in burial ceremonies, or to honour ancestors, African masks signify the cycle of life. Now, it seems, it is this cycle which we are all becoming aware of. Masks may not be something we commonly associate with tradition, or the past, but their spiritual and religious significance have become increasingly important. Our newfound fallibility has made us increasingly aware that we live between worlds, that we are not immune, and can no longer blind ourselves to the errors of our ways or the deeper mystery of life.

Secularism and its god, Reason, is now confronted with its limit and folly. We are being forced to acknowledge that something else, more inscrutable, more deeply relevant, must be recovered. The masks which Gxekwa and Le Riche present to us are not sacred in the traditional sense – they make no claim to be mediums which connect this world and the next – and yet it is this neglected spiritual realm that their project conveys.

Their masks are not traditionally earthen and wooden but made of cloth and thread – though some do evoke another medium for making traditional masks – grass. Instead, what we see are masks in vivid colours photographed against black bodies enfolded in a void. The bodies are one with their shadow world, it is the masks which leap to the fore. They are frilled, strung, floral, fecund, luminous, loud. And yet they also speak to a deeper quiet, a world beyond this world. Highly stylised, Afropolitan, in their urban edge, mood and culture, they also return us to a deeper more ancient reckoning.

See the online viewing room here