Print Contemporary Practice

Clara Weldon

Exploring Masks and Costume in Culture and Tradition

While focusing on femininity and Irish heritage throughout my work in my past semester I became fascinated in the idea of concealing one’s identity using costume and masks. I began by observing the old tradition of Wren’s Day in Ireland or Là an Dreoilìn in Irish, where traditionally the boys and men would be dressed in straw costumes, playing tunes, going from door to door asking for money to bury the wren on the 26th of December. The tradition carries out to this day in my home town of Dingle although it is not only men now that where costumes. This past year I took to ask participants if I could photograph them capturing a group of girls dressed as swamp monsters, ladies as nuns and others simply masked and playing the tin whistle.

I was also captured by an almost ominous parade in Spain that is carried out every year during the Semana Santa (Holy Week). The religious festival usually lasts for a week or two and is the most important and biggest religious festival of the year.

Researching artists who photograph similar events in other countries and cultures, they all seem to have pagan, religious and timeless traditions that make them so unique to each other while also finding connections and similarities within them.

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