Unmasking Creativity: Giving a Voice to Utah Youth

November 14 – December 19, 2020
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.