At the invitation of sixth-grade teacher Divina Gracia Agoncillo, the Executive Director visited Desert Horizon Elementary School last week to observe the award ceremony for the 6th grade class, which had completed an art project involving making and painting face masks. While there, Prof. Fellmeth passed around five masks from different continents for the students to inspect and handle, and he made some brief comments on the meaning of masquerade.
To further its public education mission, the Museum is in the process of developing short curricula of 20 minutes each for both elementary schools and high schools involving a talk about the use of masks around the world, a short film showing masquerade in action from the Museum’s video archives, and answering questions from the students. The Museum intends to keep a small but diverse group of durable masks for students to examine and hold during the question-and-answer session.
