Masks

A self-portrait, part of a series I photographed during the Covid period, featuring masks I created from parchment paper, on which I drew and incorporated paper collage, safety pins, and embroidery. In each photograph, I covered a different part of my face with the masks I made. The portrait, partially concealed, loses its identifying features, and what is revealed to the viewer is a figure without identity. The very act of wearing a mask, intended to protect, simultaneously created a sense of restricted vision, breathing, and movement, while also intensifying the social distance and fears that this act symbolized and carried with it. What stood out to me was the way the expression of emotion through facial gestures was also disrupted, and nonverbal communication between people was likewise impaired. The series also includes the masks themselves, which function as independent objects.