Through this citation, I wanted to explore the relationship between masks and society. Indeed, on page twenty-four of Belting’s book it is written that Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that people adopt, through a metaphorical way, masks or personae to conform to societal norms and expectations, rather than revealing their true selves. The citation above aims to explain what the role of mask regarding the society is and how they represent oppression. Some people are following this governmental union and others are against this censure of life imposed by the society. On one side, they are the outsiders and on the other, the followers, all embodying the same concept of covering their faces to be part of group called “the collective mask” (Belting, 159). This duality is represented on my photograph through the white and black masks to design the two different groups present in society. The pressure of the censorship imposed by the society’s rules and, by people themselves who shared common ideas by fear to not be 

accepted, is represented under a white theatrical show’s mask and his opposition under a black paint plaster mask. These individual’s restrictions are the result of a lack of liberty and expression. The metaphor of mask in the reading, and the visual representation on the photograph, represent a loss of authenticity as individual. People are shown as part of groups because of the human’s fear of rejection and non-acceptation. According to Belting, wearing a cover face means to hide our real personality because of the fear to be rejected by others. 

However, if everyone is wearing a mask “what is the real face” (Belting 24)? Only the pure girl at the center, on the photography, has a visible face. She expresses the pureness. She is the real marginal on the picture. She is not part of any communities, neither the white nor black masks. The visible girl refuses to adopt any vision adopted by the two groups. She has no agreements with the system, but she is not against it either. She has her own free will. She is just surrounded by all this masked people who think to be against each other, therefore they are all the same compared to the “virgin society” girl. I liked to explore the concept of opposition and the notion of freedom with the visible girl. Through this photograph we can realize how all extremes are similar in aspect despite their contradictory ideas. Moreover, they prefer to hide behind extreme ideas rather to be free to express their own. At contrary, the pure girl is not afraid. She is free to explore the different social and cultural customs.