Annabel Obas

Media Arts & Sciences major

I am a Haitian American creative spirit whose work centralizes around facets of my identity as a Black, queer, fem daughter of immigrants, that connect me to so many other people on those basis alone. I use found objects to create tangible landscapes as I work through understanding concepts that come to my mind.

Would You Like a Bag?

plastic bags, paper face masks, acorns, wood frames, fishing line

Jewett Hallway Galleries

Created based on the prompt of selecting a theme/focus and pursuing work within that theme/focus to produce a body of work, my final project for my advanced drawing class titled Would You Like A Bag? intended to explore how to visually intertwine the parallels between the multitude of functions of plastic bags commonly employed by family members in my home, and the all too common phenomenon of using one emotion to mask another. Often I witnessed my mother conceal her feelings of angst, worry, and fear for the safety of my siblings and I behind a wall of anger, as an apparatus of protection. In other cases, my father’s quiet and brooding demeanor were only barriers seeking to obscure feelings of anxiety and disturbance. There were even times when my mother’s need for maintaining power and control in our relationship and feelings of superiority were thinly masked by impressions of authenticity, sincerity, and care for my well being. 

How does any of this tie into plastic bags? Though commonly used to contain things like items bought at a store, in my home growing up plastic bags were almost always collected and kept after their initial use to be reemployed for other functions. When my sister finished applying a hair mask, she’d wrap and tie a bag to trap heat and contain the mess. The times when my grandmother would clean meat and rid it of the wasteful parts we weren’t going to eat, she’d grab a bag and place those parts in them then into the freezer to be thrown in the trash on trash day; her way of smothering its odor. Before any of us ever had proper lunch boxes, plastic bags served in their place to protect our food while in transport. So too were my father and mother employing emotions as masks for other underlying ones for the purposes of containing, smothering, and protecting. 

With this in mind, I also considered other aspects of plastic bags that correspond to emotion masking. Over time, with repeat use of the same bag, wear is apparent and risk of tear increases. In that same vein, the repeated use of emotions to mask renders wear on the person doing the masking. What’s more is that plastic bags of varying color, thickness, and opacity affect the contents inside of it. I think of my mother feigning sincere concern for my well being, with a veiled need for control and I see vegetables being placed in those small produce bags at the grocery store; almost still completely visible though encased. I sit in a room with my father who is mostly quiet, finding out later, through my mother, that he’s been angry with me for the better part of a day and I see clothes being stacked into a shopping bag; the plastic with no opacity that’s thick, rubbery, and only alludes to containing something.

Context aside, the misshapen, suspended configuration of the plastic bag containing the face masks represents this common practice, capturing the warping of the wear impressed on those who mask their emotions for extended periods of time. The suspension allows for one to come face to face with them. The masks that line the wall were made from placing each of the face masks inside a bag before melting the plastic onto it, making the plastic take the form of the mask. The same is true for the masks that dangle from the ceiling with eyes that glow from the light above.

to see more work by Annabel:  annabelobasportfolio.cargo.site

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