Finalists from a recent “Art of the Mask” project held each year for Southern Illinois University Carbondale architecture and interior design students, with (below) a few finished designs from previous years. (Photos provided).
October 25, 2024
SIU Carbondale architecture, interior design students prepare to ‘mask up’
CARBONDALE, Ill. — More than 60 Southern Illinois University Carbondale architecture and interior design students will show their creativity and cultural influences as they transform a white plastic mask into a work of art.
Students in Peter Smith’s design communication classes will spend Tuesday, Oct. 29, working on their individualized masks, using such items as paint, twigs, leaves, fabric and jewels and cutting the provided white masks in geometric pieces to each show their unique perspective. Completed masks will be exhibited in the first-floor Quigley Hall gallery, Room 119, for a few weeks, beginning Friday, Nov. 1.
Each artwork is derived from a simple, white “base” mask. Students conducted their own cultural research on masks and their significance from all over the world before sketching and planning in class.
Media availability
Reporters, photographers and camera crews are welcome to attend Peter Smith’s classes on Tuesday, Oct. 29, in Quigley Hall, Room 0006 (in the basement) to discuss the project with students. The class sections meet from 9:15-11:30 a.m. and 1:30-4 p.m. The completed masks will be available for viewing in the Quigley Hall gallery (Room 119), beginning Friday, Nov. 1. Media are also invited to attend the Oct. 31 event where students vote on winning pieces starting at 5 p.m. also in Quigley Hall, Room 119. For more information, contact Smith at 618-453-3734 or smithpbs@siu.edu.
“The students do the research themselves, sketch and translate their ideas into a series of drawings and then put those into a built reality,” said Smith, an associate professor in architecture and interior design in the School of Architecture.
This is the 16th “The Art of the Mask” project, which dates back to 2008. Each mask is mounted on a black 11-by-14-inch board. Students will bring their masks to the gallery in Quigley Hall (Room 119) prior to peer voting that begins at 5 p.m. Oct. 31.
Winners will be selected for:
- Most architectural.
- Most innovative use of the mask.
- Most culturally inspired.
- Most bizarre.
The four winners will then vie for “best of show.”
Smith said he plans to collect the top 150 masks from the past 16 years in the class and assemble them as a traveling exhibit to local hospitals, including children’s hospitals in the St. Louis area.