Unmasking Masks

Unmasking Masks is a one-day livestream event on April 16, 2021 that brings together artists, curators, anthropologists, and researchers from across the Southern U.S., France, and Mexico to explore the varied aspects of masks and their unsettling contemporariness. Through a series of five panel discussions, participants will examine the visual and ritualistic role of masks, as well as how their significance in both the medical field and funerary tradition has translated into a contemporary context. Considering masks in this multifaceted space allows us to reexamine the importance of visual representation and how this connects to decolonization of the arts.

Program of Events:

8:00 AM Introduction

8:15 AM Masks & Carnival Perspectives

Robert Barsky, Caryl Emerson, Martin Eisner

9:15 AM Masks & Medicine

Beth A. Conklin, Vincent Bruyère, Louise Shaw

10:30 AM Masks & Thinking Images

Raymond Bellour, Stéphanie Boulard, Claude Dessimond, Anne-Gaëlle Saliot, Erhard Stiefel, Marie Vialle

1:30 PM Masks: From Decorative to Mutant Objects

Emmanuelle Cherel, Lauren Tate Baeza, Maurita N. Poole

3:00 PM Perspectives from Latin America

Pedro Lasch, César Martinez Silva, Caroline Perrée, Esther Gabara

4:30 PM Conclusion

This event is presented by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in Atlanta, Duke University, Georgia Tech, and Vanderbilt University.