Two weeks to submit your wonderful mask to The Babel Masks!

We want to see the dreams and visions that are coming to you from your daydreams and nightmares of 2120! Given how fast fashion and art evolve and move from one decade to the next, consider how much one artist can to do take the simple protective mask and raise it to a form of high art  . . . or high fashion.

Designers and artists create the context. We are the lucky ones - because we are creating the world we live in we get the first peek at how the future will look.

Designers get inspired by the past, by their own situation, and by their troubles. Sure, a person may have a nice handmade mask a friend gave them made of cool fabric, but after wearing it a few hundred times, the artist will dream of something MORE . . . . more color, more dimension, more surprise, more humor in the mask they eventually want and can't find anywhere. That's when they make their own.

Our team of blind jurors is made up of three people: the Librarian, and two jurors with impressive track records as curators. (To learn more about us, go here.) 

​We select work, not names. Entry is open to everyone, anywhere, of any age. 

We're looking for imagination. We're asking to see what you spy when you peer a hundred years into the future.

Whether this is your first exhibition or your fortieth, if you have a vivid vision you just can't shake of what masks might be as we all evolve, we hope it will come to roost here at the archive.

                                                                         Submit your work! 

So what does it mean to have a blind jury, anyway?

It means that the jury sees every submission without a name or identifying information attached, so that all they see is the work. Any names or other giveaways are removed from the images of work before being set before the discerning eyes of the jurors.

The art world is smaller than you might suppose, and we at the Library know and love a lot of people. So we need to keep clear of that old sea-monster, unconscious bias. A blind jury is the best way to do that.

So submit your work in mysterious fashion! Go to the Prospectus page! 

Excelsior! 

The Head Librarian

An exhibition of masks is coming to 2020 here at the Library. Lately the Librarian has been unfettered in time and space and she can't get her mind off the year 2120.

For one thing, artists in 2120 aren't asked to pay in order to exhibit, so that is something we all have to look forward to. In fact, they are paid to exhibit, whether they sell anything or not. We aren't quite there yet, but for a start this exhibition has no artist fees either to submit or to participate.

The submission guidelines and prospectus are right here on the site. If you have a window on the future and you glimpsed something wild, we want you to share it with us and the world. Follow instructions carefully though. This time-travel business is trickier than it seems.