This June we have seen everpresent racism come into public view in its ugliness in our esteemed greater Brattleboro area community. As a community (‘It takes a Brattleboro’), we have the opportunity to surface our assumptions in dialogue, work on understanding each other better, deal with rotten thinking, find ways to get attitude change to take root, and do a better job of building relationships.

The ways are many and varied to face up to the ugliness and not just pretend it doesn’t exist. One way that has emerged in this very month of revelations is an outstanding artmaking and exhibition project that involves, literally, our faces as objects, one and all, of unique and related beauty.

In the final tableau of masks, each mask combines with its neighbors to form an organic, flowing surface of beauty. Light and shadow play with each other. Facial forms link to each other in their similarity and ripple with subtle variety.

During the past month, an art project that began in Japan six years ago was reborn at World Learning's S.I.T. Graduate Institute and continues to bring promise of bringing people of different backgrounds and upbringings together. The project is called Peace Masks.

Brattleboro has turned into a United Nations through this Peace Masks project. People have been sharing their faces for this art project for greater peace and understanding among us all. Fourteen participants shared their experiences in a culminating forum at the Brattleboro Museum. They were from Azerbaijan, Cote d'Ivoire, Cuba, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Nepal, Romania, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, the Sudan, the United States. One participant was a Tibetan living in India. Their faces and those of their colleagues are part of a beautiful tableau that was shown in our Museum in June and now through the summer in West Brattleboro.

Museum Director Danny Lichtenfeld was delighted to host the forum and exhibit: "Myong-Hee Kim’s ‘Peace Masks Project’ is inspirational. So much art attempts to promote peace, but this project somehow goes further, actually managing to instill it not only in those individuals whose faces are represented by the masks, but also in those who view the stunning final installation, listen to the participants recount their experience of being ‘masked,’ and read the peace messages created by those participants."

Creator of Peace Mask project, Myong Hee Kim, a Korean-born artist living in Japan for the past 30 years explains the art making process: "There are several layers of mulberry paper applied one by one to the face to make the mould and then the mask. There are about fifty faces in this display. Each face takes about an hour. That is why I call this Slow Art."

The face-donor is lying down, has straws inserted in the nose for breathing, and has one layer after another of wet handmade paper applied to the skin, each layer making the whole progressively heavier. The layers cling together into a mould of the face. The layers harden, and then are carefully peeled off and set out to dry as a mask.

Through the mask-making process, the gentle reassuring presence of Myong Hee shines through. Over and over, participants referred to her quiet voice and light touch as sensations that helped them build trust and feel positive and determined to get through an unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable experience.

For Padmini Solomon of Malaysia: “It made me more than a little nervous to have my whole face and nose covered in plaster. In the sudden darkness I found myself contemplating life and death and I realized that I was more fully present to everything that was happening to me as I had never been before. Yes, it was a powerful experience to have the mould made of my face. Making the mask from that mould was also intriguing - you don't quite know what you will look like until you actually see your mask!”

Peter Mbae Njogu of Kenya spoke of some of the most important things we can do for each other: giving a gift and receiving a gift from others. Here he was giving the gift of his face to participate in the Peace Masks.

Participant Caridad Martinez-Echevarria lives in Massachusetts, was born in New York of Cuban heritage, and lived for several years in Puerto Rico. "For me this experience was mostly about trust. It's a process ... a lesson in the steps towards building trust. The anxiety was lessened step by step every time a new layer was put on me. By the time all the plaster was on my face and it became very heavy and very dark, I felt confident enough just to stay with it, to trust through that moment of anxiety [because of] the care that Myong Hee showed me throughout the process. What this whole process means to me in terms of peace building is that through patience and care towards another human being, trust is built and the possibility of peace can become a reality. Peace can mean many things, but in this case, to me peace meant that I could trust that another human being whom I had just met recently had the respect and the patience to care for me. Peace is the building of trust. Myong Hee was able to tune into my needs as we went along."

Many insights came from the participants when the wet paper was so thick on their faces that all was dark and they could not talk. Feeling the reassuring hand of a colleague against their own hands helped build trust. They had no idea whose hand it was - what country or race, or even whether it was a man or a woman until afterwards.

One woman participant mentioned that her face mask was thought at first to be the face of a male colleague and vice versa for his mask.

Myong Hee grew up in an atmosphere of mutual dislike between Japanese and Korean people based on the longstanding history of Japanese occupation of Korea. Thinking at first she would never like being in Japan, she surprised herself by making many close Japanese friends. She came to realize the great importance of people-to-people relationships. “Through my art, I want to honor this relationship for more peace in the world.” Turning to gaze at the Peace Mask tableau, she said, “Look at all these beautiful and peaceful faces. We are one human race. And yet we are of such variety.”

When she heard that Japan and Korea had co-sponsored the 2002 FIFA Soccer/Football Cup, Myong Hee was moved to use her art as a bridge between the Korean and Japanese cultures. This was the first instance of Peace Masks. Since then, Peace Masks have appeared in scores of installations - at museums and a variety of international events. In the first project of 2002, Myong Hee and groups of dedicated volunteers helped to produce more than 1,500 faces into giant tableaux.

The current Peace Mask 2008 project began in CONTACT, or Conflict Transformation Across Cultures, a Summer Peacebuilding Program held each June at World Learning's School for International Training Graduate Institute in Brattleboro. Program Director Paula Green explained further: "This year there are 62 participants from 24 countries in attendance, coming from civil society organizations, government and UN offices, human rights, educational, and religious institutions, and graduate students. The faculty is also international, coming from Japan, Australia, Rwanda, and the Philippines, as well as the US."

The "meaning" or "vision" behind the Peace Mask Project consists of the following five aspects: 1) resolving conflict through community art workshops and exhibitions; 2) creating bridges between cultures and across generations; 3) respecting the individual while understanding the shared community of humankind; 4) involving others, young and older, in making art for peace and mutual understanding; and 5) sharing with others.

Gaze at the sea of faces. Think about what Peace Mask facial donors had to say. The Peace Mask 2008 project is one example of an antidote to alienation and hatred. The path is through personal engagement and involvement in activities that create opportunities for mutual respect and trust.

Peace Masks 2008 continues in West Brattleboro until September in two new installations at the C.X. Silver Gallery, open daily 9 am to 9 pm by appointment and chance walk-in. Myong Hee may be available in the future for Peace Mask commissions and programs. For further information contact Gallery Co-Director Adam Silver, cxsilvergallery@verizon.net or (802) 257-7898 ext. 2.

Versions of this article appear in Gallery Walk Magazine, with appreciation to Joy Wallens-Penford, and in The Commons, July issue, page 21 with appreciation to Editor Jeff Potter.