Bajo El Sol Gallery Continues Mask Making Workshops

Bajo El Sol Gallery continues its “Mask Making as a Tool for Community Expression and Healing in the Aftermath” through the end of July with additional mask making workshops and community exhibitions.

The St. John PoP-Up Community Mask Making Project Exhibitions, featuring over 300 masks, are now on display at the St. John National Park Visitor Center between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Sunday 8 a.m. and at the Mongoose Junction PoP-Up space across from Little Switzerland, between noon and 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

In addition, due to popular demand, the Arts & Culture Recovery Committee of St. John (ACRC) which includes such organizations as The St. John School of the Arts, The Community Foundation of St. John, JANCO and the Gri Gri Project, will host two more Mask Making Workshops starting at 6 p.m., on Friday, July 20 and Saturday, July 21, at the PoP-Up exhibition space in Mongoose Junction, across from Little Switzerland.

Mask-making has had spiritual and social functions globally; mask-making and masquerading traditions have come to the Caribbean region via African and European cultures. This project proposes that the practice of mask-making can be therapeutic for the St. John community in the aftermath of the major hurricanes that affected the island in 2017.

Participants are encouraged to imagine new identities, new selves, new ways of being in the storms’ aftermath. The masks can be purely imaginative or have elements of social commentary.

Workshops are free and art supplies are included. We encourage participants to bring found objects to embellish your masks.

This project is sponsored by the Community Foundation of St. John, St. John Angels, Guardian Insurance, Mongoose Junction and Topa Properties Ltd.
Contact Priscilla at 693-7070 for further information.