TARTUTTAJAT || The Carriers: About the Inspiration

I love masks. I love their endless variation possibilities and the mystery that always surrounds the wearer. Even when worn by someone we know, the masks immediately give an aura of strangeness, mischief, mystery and even threat. Wearing a mask can also make the wearer feel like something out of ordinary has been added to their persona, something they don’t entirely know, an extra layer…

A good friend of mine actually suggested to me two years ago that I should design a collection of masks that would protect the wearers from the air pollution but at the time I had my mind set on different designs. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread and the masks were suddenly a strongly trending item, my friend got a rather good ‘I told you so’ moment.

However, the protective masks were not what I would design this time either. In my eyes the pandemic seemed to highlight the different patterns in the human behavior. The reactions were exploding everywhere you looked at. They were all over the news and wildly spreading around the Internet. The social media channels were filled with them and of course the people met in the daily life were not exceptions as everyone had something to say about the COVID-19.

I did not decide to choose exactly four reactions to be portrayed in the collection. But when I sat down and started to work on the idea, these four came up naturally. To me they seemed to represent the strongest among the reactions, becoming the archetypes to many others. There was a lot of anger and arguments over the COVID-19 and its numerous aspects. Incredible amount of sadness followed the spreading of the virus as people had to be separated from their loved ones, some for forever. As the virus could travel around and infect humans so easily, the hysteric gearing up and the general fear engulfed many in ways that seemed to be nearing full paranoia. And among the angry, the sad and the paranoid, there were always those who denied the severity of COVID-19 no matter what the numbers said.

TARTUTTAJAT || The Carriers were named with the idea in mind that how ever we felt about the virus, we were all the same to it. If it got the chance, the virus would infect anyone and the infected would become the carriers of the coronavirus. This is also the reason for the UV paint splattered on the masks. Each mask fell victim to the tiny dots of paint but the droplets are hard to notice until they are viewed in the right sort of light.

Next time I’ll share with you some of the design progress behind TARTUTTAJAT, until then

sincerely,

Iina