what are some questions I can ask regarding personal assumption, values, and between the possible intent of the creator and your own interpretation of it's meaning?

Question

I need help trying to understand what it means to pose two questions regarding the question when it come to studying guro masks

Answer 1

Hi Shyeanne, this seems like a question mainly oriented towards anthropology, in which I'm not an expert. However, I think there are a lot of things you could unpack here.

For me, guro masks are items that come from a different culture from my own, so I may have initial impressions or emotions related to how they compare to my own assumptions about the person (with their own culture) that created the masks, about the form of the masks themselves, about the reason the masks were created, etc. So I would probably examine my reactions along those lines and then devise questions about why I reacted that way. (This would clearly differ from person to person, depending on their background.)

I might ask, for instance: how does the relationship between images I've been exposed to in my culture impact my own response to the item in question? How does the form of the items reflect or express the cultural background of the creator, and how does this express the values and/or creative interpretation of the creator? How are my personal assumptions about the culture that created the items influencing my thoughts/assumptions/opinions/judgements about the item in question?

Those are just some thoughts, and others might have better responses, but I hope it helps!