The Roman Mask

Join Laura Mansfield from the Manchester Salon as she talks about the Roman actor's mask at Warrington Museum & Art Gallery.

Laura recently produced a publication/folio of writings with four other artists about a Roman ritual called the "Fãs".

In Georges Dumézil’s 1969 publication 'Idées Romaines', he discusses the ritual of the Fãs, a performative procession over three centrifugal stages, representing a particular boarder territory at the fringes of the Empire. 

Performed before Rome undertook military and civil actions in foreign territories, the Fãs constituted an important tool of visualisation. The first stage symbolized Roman territory near the frontier, the second the frontier itself, the third the foreign territory. In addition to the allegorical significance of the spatial placing of the stages, their ritual crossing furthermore symbolized the temporal anticipation of an action to come. Each crossing would reference a decisive stage of time within a narrative: beginning, middle and end. In his essay 'Spatial Stories', Michel de Certeau extends Dumézil’s description in order to make a comparison with the founding action of any story, that is, “laying a ground and opening up a theatre for practical actions”. 

Working with artists Augusto Corrieri, Matti Isan Blind, Kit Poulson, Marie Toseland and the designers An Endless Supply, Laura Mansfield has produced a publication that responds to the abstract perimeters of the Fãs, exploring its associated themes of storytelling, rehearsal, repetition and suspension. Through the composition of fragments of narrative and imagery, the contributors tease out elements of the ancient rite in order to represent multiple contemporary versions of the ritual. 

This free session is suitable for all ages.