Exhibition text by OK Corral

A slowly rotating mask creates the eye trick referred to as the hollow mask illusion. In online videos the eye is fooled to see the concave face of a mask as a normal convex face. The trick is often accompanied with the claim that a lack of experiencing this illusion can reveal mental illness. Despite the fact that this claim is yet to be fully embraced by science, it is true that optical illusions have been successfully used in the world of psychiatry to explore and diagnose the spectrums of mental disorder.

As a drone of thought this phenomenon lurks underneath the exhibition Hollow Mask Kid, in which Danish artist Kim Richard Adler Mejdahl invoke his past child-self through the exhibit of childhood toys, early art pieces, and his trembling pages from childhood diaries. But as one follow the private and autobiographical traces, the image of the face that once belonged to the artist becomes increasingly fragmented and distorted.

Through the ambiguous character of the mask the exhibition explores strategies of coping, transformation and resurrection in relation traumatic past events. While the term 'to put on a mask' in everyday language is often used to metaphorize the shallowness or arbitrariness of identity, the mask also holds a long and consistent history as a mean to obtain superior power in rituals and magic. As such the hollow mask may suggest a different perspective, the entering into a new realm in which one can reclaim agency.