Created June 15th, 2020, the YHB Pocket Protest Shield is a foldable face shield that can fit in your pocket, making it easy to transport and use, either casually or at protest actions. A shield provides protestors with extra protection against COVID while in larger crowds, while also providing possible protection from pepper spray by shielding the eyes. Furthermore, optional stickers, paint, vinyl, duct tape, can be added to potentially disrupt basic facial recognition algorithms. The shield is lightweight, durable, cost-effective, and can be worn either via elastic or can be attached directly to a pair of glasses via the arms.

YHB is a nod to the artists and designers whose work inspired this shield: Tokujin Yoshioka, Adam Harvey, and John Baldessari. Its important to note that this project was not created in a vacuum. Countless artists and designers have been working for decades on disrupting surveillance culture by empowering publics to action. This project is a synthesis of several ideas and outcomes from those efforts.

The shields are being sold as $6 kit to fundraise for Black Lives Matter. Each purchase also allows me to provide face shields to local protesters free of charge. Lastly, I created a video tutorial so that others can make the shields themselves.

Masked Messages Project

PROJECT WEBSITE: bit.ly/maskedmessagesproject

Masked Messages is collaborative crowd-sourced art project that began May 12th 2020 in response to the Covid-19 epidemic. As the western world struggles to become accustomed to wearing face masks in public spaces, our ability to use facial expressions as a communication tool has all but disappeared. 

Masked Messages transforms the common face mask into a site/canvas for artistic intervention and expression through the creation of mini mask shields designed with user submissions What is it you want to say behind your face mask?

Selected submissions were produced and participants will get a mini-shield with their submission on it mailed to them as a thank you.

A full archive of 24 created submissions can be found here. My collaborators for this project included artists Melissa Potter, Vagner Merdonca Whitehead, David Jude Green, Michelle Graves, Eden Ünlüata, Trisha Oralie, Kari Sommers, and others.

Public Exhibition

I designed a public exhibition for Masked Messages which ran from May 20th - June 20th at the Brown Arts Initiative in Providence RI as part of the Art in Place, organized by CNL Projects and Terrain Biennial. The installation is projection based along with a display window that includes didactic text and sample of the currently created submissions.

Video:

Website: bit.ly/nosewfacemask

Designed based on available internet research, I created this video tutorial, and corresponding website with citations of all relevant research. By using this common household materials, this DIY facemask was published to provide the public with a useful and accessible alternative to medical-grade masks in the hopes of keeping said medical masks in the hands of our first responders. Based on the CDC recommendations, as of April, everyone should be using a facemask when entering public space.

Fog Blockers for Glasses

As someone who wears glasses, I was struggling with them fogging up while I was wearing my masks outside, which lead to me touching and moving my glasses around alot, which was annoying and counter intuitive to the “don’t touch your face” rule. So I designed a 3D printed solution with a DIY counterpart which attaches a shield to the bottom of my glasses that helps dissipate any moisture that leads to fogging. Models and instructions for both are avalable at bit.ly/fogblockers

I also created a Drag Version of the Fog Blockers which work equally well, but are a bit more fun. Inspired by Drag Queen Trixie Mattel’s discussion of being at home wearing “nothing but a bowl cut wig and a bottom lash”

Face Shields

There have been alot of great 3D printed designs generated for the medical industry in the last couple of months, which are excellent. However they take a while to create (2-3 hours just for printing), and have to adhere to strict medical design needs (as they should!). Many of these designs aren't producible to scale for all of our non-medical, yet essential workers in our grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, sanitation, etc. Furthermore, many of our essential workers don't have access to 3D printers, so they can't make PPE themselves. In response, I developed a design that can be both 3D printed or made DIY.

WHAT THIS DESIGN DOES DIFFERENTLY:

• Using a baseball cap cuts the need to 3D print a band like structure, reducing overall print time to 30 mins (3 clips) per shield from 2-3 hours. The DIY safety pins saves even more time, being able to make about 3 of them in 5 mins.

• Baseball caps are accessible, customizable in terms of sizing, and are overall more comfortable to wear

• Because the 3D clips/safety pins can be moved along the brim, this design will work with a number of shields

Visit the corresponding website at bit.ly/easyfaceshield for access to the free 3D model or DIY tutorial.

Face Shield Cap Clips: bit.ly/easyfaceshield

(Early Prototype) Baseball Cap Face Shield

(Early Prototype) Clothing Hanger Face Shield

The Montana Mask is a popular 3D printed face mask that allows for medical professionals to cut up medical-grade filters into smaller pieces to ration our very limited national supply. I became interested in how I might create a physical filtration system that could:

1. elongate the effective lifespan of medical-grade filters used in the mask even further.

2. if effective in filtering on its own, perhaps open the mask up to use other, more accessible materials for filters

To do this, I added to the Montana Mask Filter Holder via 3D modeling in tinkercad, and created a complicated airway through a maze of interconnected tunnels with sharp angles that will hopefully trap some portion of particles like Covid-19 as the air makes it way though the filter. Unfortunately, I have no way of testing the effectiveness of these designs, so they remain sketches.