Unmasking Creativity
Giving a Voice to Utah Youth
November 14 - December 19, 2020
Featured exhibition in The Day After Tomorrow Community Response Space
Unmasking Creativity features artistic expressions and written experiences by middle and high school students
in response to the current pandemic. As an important arts education resource for our
schools, NEHMA wanted to provide a creative outlet to students during this challenging
time and invited local teachers to participate by giving them face masks that their
students then transformed as a reflection of their thoughts and emotions during this
period.
After transforming the mask, the students took self-portraits wearing the mask and
wrote short statements answering the questions: How has the COVID-19 crisis most impacted
you and your family? Why did you choose to transform your mask in this way? Why did
you choose this location for your portrait?
As we try to embrace the mask in our daily lives in order to be safe and to keep others
safe, we also have the opportunity to express ourselves with the masks like we do
with other things we wear.
This project is inspired by photographer J.P. Spicer-Escalante’s series, The Love in the Time of Coronavirus Project, which documented how people have relied on important relationship in their lives
during this time. He photographed families in Cache Valley wearing masks during the
stay-at-home order in June. Those families also wrote statements about how the pandemic
had impacted their lives. His work was exhibited prior to this exhibition in this
space, which we are calling the Community Response Space.
Over 80 students from five local schools in Cache County are featured in this exhibition.
This project is part of The Day After Tomorrow Community Response Space. Explore the full exhibition at The Day After Tomorrow: Art in Response to Turmoil and Hope.
This project has received funding from Utah Humanities. Utah Humanities empowers Utahns
to improve their communities through active engagement in the humanities.
This project is also supported in part by Utah Arts & Museums, with funding from the
State of Utah.

Three examples of transformed masks by students Zyanya S, Jocelyn K. and Charlie K.