Design embraces the challenge of addressing complex issues through multidimensional and pluralistic approaches. It continuously absorbs and reinterprets concepts, tools, and methodologies, transforming them into concrete solutions and frameworks of understanding. The author started to use design and masks in December 2023: traditionally associated with theatre, transformation and communication, masks become a medium for exploring new forms of teaching and participatory practice in design. Far from being mere expressive artefacts, they act as plural design devices that shift perspectives, inspire creative and lateral thinking, promote interaction among individuals, groups, and environments. Employed in sensory-educational design contexts, masks serve as catalysts for redefining approaches, engaging with personal and collective identities, and supporting change, connection, and co-creation. Design can broaden its scope and potential by engaging with new questions and practices informed by the knowledge and traditions associated with masks. Pilot projects and hands-on exercises in mask design and fabrication demonstrate how the fundamental principles of design can serve as a means to renegotiate, invent, revitalize personas, spaces, atmospheres, communities and design teaching itself. The paper examines cases in which masks, when employed in educational and participatory contexts, operate as design instruments that promote creativity, new narrative, critical inquiry, and active participation.
Silvana Kühtz (2026) studied this question.