Brighton&Hove Museum Visit

Bedu Masquerade:
Introduction

Bedu is a plank mask (between 0.5 and 2.5 m in length), a unique regional creation used throughout the Bondoukou region of Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa. In its different forms, Bedu reflects the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the region. Local communities have individualised Bedu and incorporated the masquerade in their own ritual calendar.

Bedu generally appears once a year for between a week and a month, at the New Year festivities. These celebrate the renewal of the natural and the social order. Bedu embodies this transition because it is itself seen as a product of transfer. The mask is seen as the reproduction ("domestication") of the Bedu wild animal that lives in the bush. Sculpting transforms Bedu into a domesticated animal while painting Bedu invests it with authority.

At the New Year feast Bedu appears in two types of performances; Zorogo which parody and question the certainties of everyday life and classic Bedu performances which dramatise and reaffirm the social order. Throughout these performances the different groups make Bedu into an ally, an object of mockery or a divine creature. By incorporating these different identities Bedu emerges as an arbitrator between men and women, a cultural ambassador for the village and an advocate of consideration for children.

Today Bedu remains the focal point of important festivities and continues to mobilise its community to debate and deliberate basic social and political issues.

Unlike the real Bedu mask which is conceived as a reproduction ("domestication") of the original ("wild") Bedu, tourist and miniature Bedu masks are seen as mere copies of these reproductions. Miniature Bedu masks are ordered by local people who keep them as souvenirs of the real Bedu of their village. Tourist Bedus have gained popularity among collectors since the 1960s.

Source: http://www.virtualmuseum.info/collections/themes/bedu/html/introduction.html

Undergraduate Introduction

John Everest
Critical Fine Art Practice

Currently within my practice I have been looking at the ever-more common use of the camera, found firmly behind the boom of social interactivity. In this series I have repeatedly used myself as the primary subject within each frame to reference the growing plethora of self-taken images; readily found on the internet and extensively on many of the major social-networking sites.

Project Introduction

Over the course of 4 studio workshops, a number of University Undergraduates will lead a wide range of activities, encouraging a small group of Year 8 pupils to explore the notion of personal and communal identity. The project will conclude with the production of a site specific installation- combining a number of exciting visual techniques that would have been practiced throughout these sessions. Lead by Irene Mensah

About the Blog:

The blog will be used by the Undergraduates to document the project as and when it develops and progresses. To their benefit, the blog has the ability to cater for the varying mediums/media collected throughout the project-including text, photography, audio and video. They will be able to access the blog at any time in order to share their own reflective thoughts and responses to the project. It may even become the hub or site for any session-structure planning, that may take place in-between the sessions.

Hopefully, we may end up a substantial document containing information, reflection and analysis from many different participants (including the Project Leader, Undergraduate Facilitators, Year 8 pupils/teachers and also web-links to various contextual resources).

For the UoB students running and participating in the blog, it will encourage them to reflect meticulously upon the term ‘community artist’; what this role might actually entail and how it might influence the rest of their studies and career aspirations.

John Everest
Undergraduate