Protest Mask Project

The CAT – standing for Creative, Aesthetic Transgression – came first as a social media experiment for the selfie generation. Frere’s cat masks have travelled from China and Iran, across Europe to the Americas, with enthusiastic CAT owners posting their photos online.

The CAT leapt onto the wall first in protest against gentrification, then took on issues such as appalling breaches of human rights in Bahrain and Gaza; closer-to-home topics include Scottish independence, along with my screaming heads, conceived initially as collagraph prints. In this new era of soul-baring social media openness, we leave digital footprints, providing data that enable analysts, some with malevolent intent, to know us better than we know ourselves.