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| White African Mask |
A wall covered with African masks. The masks were of traditional designs from Kenya, Gabon, and the Congo, but instead of being made of traditional materials, they were made of plaster and painted white.
the masks were from “traditional cultures” across Africa, so the wall of masks was “like a map of Africa.” Yet these were not “real” masks.They were “fakes” made in a local factory, rendering the map somewhat artificial. Real masks would have been better, S told us, but traditional objects were simply more expensive. They were also more dangerous. Pointing to the curtain of fake porcupine quills hanging from the ceiling, S explained that real porcupine quills were costly and dangerously sharp. Plastic replicas of porcupine quills, he said, offered the same appearance, but they were cheaper and safer.
