Papercut Dæmons

Stories are what make us human.

Papercut Dæmons is a collection of masks created in the Parsons School of Design Integrated Design Studio Intensive, lead by Marisa Morán Jahn. The class was tasked with creating a collection of images based on the idea of Dæmons as agents of chaos. My concept for the “Folklore Group” was Papercut Dæmons, the agents of chaos inherited as stories are passed down through generations.

Each generation inherits its forebearers' thoughts, morals, ideas, loves, hurts, and contradictions through the everchanging play that is storytelling. These plays often feature a similar set of characters. The Daemons Folklore Group wanted to recast this eternal cast, obscuring their features with cut paper masks, to understand the energy loss, the chaos, and the ideological papercuts that can appear with the turning of generational pages.

Sometimes the stories we tell cut deep. Each Dæmon design features a cut paper mask designed and built by me. I served as the director of the shoot and conceptualized the idea. The lighting, photography, and additional costuming were collaborations with other students in the class.

Final Images

Early Character Concept Designs

The initial idea of the project was to pull figures from old Scottish and Welsh mythology, like Myrddin, and then abstract their forms in the masks. While some of the inspiration stayed others were added like Tsuru no Ongaeshi, The Crane Wife. All forms were intentionally abstracted beyond specifics into archetypal forms.