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Changing face: masks from the British Museum
Changing face: masks from the British Museum
People wear masks for amusement, deception or protection.
Usually the masks transform the wearer by giving them a new
appearance. But their deeper significance has always varied greatly
between different cultures and periods.
Changing Face explores some of these
differences. It includes masks worn by the living and by the dead,
masks that were used for entertainment and others that had a role
in ritual. There is a mask that gave animal-like qualities to human
beings and one which gave human qualities to vegetables.
Masks also illustrate the many ways in which the human face has
been represented - the generic or specific, abstract or realistic,
the idealized and the absurd. Changing Face
therefore raises questions about how people portray themselves and
how they choose to reveal or conceal their identities.