Brilio.net/en - Artist Adek Dimas Ajisaka makes masks, but theyre no ordinary masks. He makes his masks by smearing paper clay onto the human body.
And thats only the beginning.
Dimas doesnt just smear the paper clay on any human body to make his masks. He smears it on the faces of 15 blind people who have agreed to participate in his art projects. He doesnt just stop with masks, however. He creates other body parts -- abdomens, arms, legs, hands -- and connects them to the mask.
While these artistic methods are wonderfully creative and unique, it is his partnership with blind people that adds an especially intriguing depth to his work.
It all began when Demas came across a group of blind people carefully walking together in a line, holding each others shoulders, and relying on a white cane to guide their way. This inspired him to collaborate with people with disabilities, and he had the idea of creating molds from their faces to make masks. He approached the Bina Netra Social Institution in Pundong, Bantul, and told them about his idea. They quickly agreed. Soon after, he was able to work with 15 blind people from the institution who had agreed to participate in his project.
After he created the masks using their faces, he incorporated the masks into larger works of art that included brilliant use of form, color, and shapes of other body parts to enhance the distinct sense of humanity in each work. This fascinating approach quickly became his standard model for making art.
The mask artwork
On a deeper level, a desire to understand the perspective of a blind person -- to immerse himself in the way they experience the world without sight -- produced the idea for his mask art. This empathy drove him to answer the following questions through his art: What is it like to be blind? How does a blind person see the world from their minds eye and from their experiences of life through their other senses? How can we see the world the way a blind person sees it?
In a way, Dimas was making a statement: just because blind people do not have physical sight does not mean they lack a valuable perspective -- a sight all their own -- of the world.
The mask printing process
In addition, the friendship that blossomed between Dimas and his blind collaborators gave Dimas a poignant reminder: we should always be grateful for everything we have -- no matter how small -- because there are some people who do not have the luxury of sight, and they cannot experience the visual beauty of the world.
However, as Dimas shows in his art, those who are blind have a unique way of experiencing the world, and we can learn from their perspective. His art emphasizes that people with disabilities are just as valuable as anyone else, and their humanity is just as rich and complex as a person without disabilities. They still laugh and grieve and dream as much as you or I do.
Besides emphasizing these truths about people with disabilities, Dimas is drawn to the technique of making masks from human faces because it improves his technical skills as an artist. It also allows him to become a storyteller similar to an actor in a theatrical play.
For me, an artwork is like a theatrical performance and each mask plays its own role on the visual art stage, said Dimas while speaking to brilio.net/en at the 27th Yogyakarta Arts Festival (FKY).
All good artists must find their own unique ways to make art, and Dimas excels in finding as many unique expressions as possible. Besides partnering with the blind and approaching his works like a theatrical performance, Dimas does something else unique: he repurposes paper goods that have been discarded to be used in his art. This makes it easy to get the materials that he needs -- there is an abundant amount of discarded papers to be found -- but it also creates another artistic statement: he is turning something trivial or unappreciated -- discarded paper goods -- into something valuable and full of meaning.
And this implicit message -- that there is great value and meaning to be found in the people or things that society has discarded or deemed trivial -- is always the beginning point of Adek Dimas Ajisakas art.