Maskbook: Art of Change 21
The Art of Change 21 group asked us to share their Maskbook project. This has been running since 2015, but has new meaning in response to the pandemic. The group asked us to share their project after our call out for artworks and articles to explore links between the Pandemic, the Planetary Emergency and its roots in extractivism.
Maskbook is a global participatory creative action exploring the links between health and the environment, using the protective mask as a symbol. They have organised more than 200 workshops around the world, inviting participants to create and pose with artworks in the form of face masks. Most interpretations before 2020 referred to air pollution, or other environmental issues perhaps. Now, the Covid-19 pandemic is exposing the link between health and environment on an unprecedented scale and galvanising people into action.
They provide the following summary of this link: “The crisis we are going through is both confronting and connecting humanity and biodiversity. The consumption and trafficking of wild animals are at the heart of the challenges raised by this current pandemic. Zoonoses, infectious diseases in vertebrate animals that can be transmitted to humans, represent two thirds of emerging diseases recorded over the past 40 years (AIDS, Ebola). They emerge in biodiversity ‘hotspots’ exploited, destroyed or passed through by humans. Global warming is accelerating the emergence of new zoonoses, forcing species to migrate north or to higher altitudes, or due to the the thawing of permafrost, which stores many age-old threats. Taking action to preserve biodiversity and tackle global warming has never been so crucial… for humanity.”
The aim is to collectively create the largest international gallery of masked, creative and committed portraits on the theme of COVID-19. Participants are asked: What does this pandemic reveal? What post-pandemic world do you want?
Now that workshops together can’t easily happen in real spaces, there is a call out for you to make mask artworks at home, take portraits of yourself and household wearing them, and submit them to the gallery. Please don’t use a real protective mask as these should be saved for active use. The instructions are all here.
#maskbookcovid19
