The artist, on Passport Masks: 

“One of my favourite poems is “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot and one line in particular has always appealed to me.

“To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet…”

This line embodies the whole concept of the Mask – the verb and the noun. It’s the idea of pretending to be someone on the outside while inside, a whole other set of emotions is at play. It’s age old, but seems particularly heightened in our times. Just look at the people who 'mask' themselves up to look ‘attractive’ for a non-existent world, i.e. social media, without a thought, seemingly, for how they appear in ‘real life.’ It is as if real life is somehow secondary. The term ‘real life,’ although in use since the seventeenth century, becomes more pertinent every minute.

This whole concept of “masking” plays to works I make about icons and talismen and symbolism and superstition. Still very much part of our lives, despite the fact that we feel that we are beyond the need for such things.

I often work at a larger scale. So when looking for ‘small’ in response to Good Things, I discovered Passport Masks, traditionally carried by the Dan and related groups of Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia. They are a miniature form of family identity masks and range in height between 6 and 20cm. Too small to be worn as actual masks,, they carry the same potency, preventative, protective, and curative powers as their larger counterparts. Passport Masks are carried about the person while travelling, serving as an important means of identification outside of the bearer’s immediate community.

I wondered if, behind the perfect faces I meet, there isn’t a much more interesting face just waiting to tell its own story. And maybe instead of biometric passports, we should all be carrying a Passport Mask. Just a thought…" - Rachel Williams