The MASKBOOK project was started by Chinese artist Wen Fang and Art of Change 21, a creative art association in France, in Paris in 2015 during the COP21 – the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Since then, The MASKBOOK project has been encouraging people to make masks and present their works as a creative way to participate in the discussion of global issues, to express their opinions, to think about the causes and possible solutions for air pollution. The website of the project – www.maskbook.org – has collected images of masks made by thousands of participants from more than forty countries. These images have been exhibited around the world regularly.
In 2020, with the emergence of the Covid-19 virus, Wen Fang, together with Windowfish Artist Collective, decided to reactivate the MASKBOOK project, and received support from Beijing Muyun Art and Culture Foundation. This exhibition features the new works created for the MASKBOOK project in 2020. It takes the present situation as the starting point and examines what changed and what didn’t.
To make a small mask is to establish a good connection – a connection to creative expression. It is not to repost, nor to comment, nor to like, nor to insult. It asks people to search for information, to open their mind, to think independently, and to bring a small possibility of something different to life. The significance of this type of expression is: from this moment, we start to act, instead of waiting.
—- Wen Fang, the founder the MASKBOOK project
As the pandemic situation in China is under control, while the virus still runs riot in many other countries, I strongly sense the meaning of being human. Humanity is a unitary entity itself, and at the same time a part of this world. When confronted with the ecology, we must learn to be modest and to reintegrate ourselves.
—- Yiting, Windowfish Artist Collective
If there is no experience to borrow, we shall act and create new possibilities.
—- Wugeng, Windowfish Artist Collective
We are to rethink our connection with the outside world and seek new balance during the disruptive time.
