2024 - Stanford University

A Dramatic Retelling of an Ananse Story

How do we archive culture?

Oral traditions permeated home as my grandmother shared folktales about Ananse the spider with me growing up. This set of injection molded figurines, with masks inspired by Commedia Dell’arte theatre traditions, retells one of these stories. It enshrines the main character’s journey in a cultural artifact.

MATERIALS

polypropylene with stainless steel hardware and poplar base

THE CHALLENGE

Design a part or family of injection molded parts that interact in a geometrically meaningful way with multiple copies of itself or an existing component.

ME325 - Making Multiples: Injection Molding

Budget

Timeframe

$60

5 Weeks

Designing Interacting Parts

I started with a character study because I saw an opportunity to explore stylized illustrations in 3D form with the vibrant material color options. In considering stories that were important for me to tell through this study, I began to explore creating a cultural artifact.

The masks’ interchangeability fit the design brief, and introduced a fun interactive element. It would allow the cultural artifact to live and evolve over time with the story.

Mask Design

I was inspired by commedia dell’arte stock characters because the archetypes felt very specific yet legible, and I could see the main character, Ananse, performing these various roles through his journey in the story. The commedia masks are also incredibly expressive, particularly in the contortions of the brow, in a way that I felt could enrich the masks as a storytelling medium.

Mask Evolution

Modeling the masks was a balancing act between creating geometry that considered the part mold size and machinability (tool size, part fixturing, part finish, machining time), plastic flow simulations, and my artistic intensions.

I designed preliminary snap fit joints based on some back of the envelope cantilever calculations, with support from the Laxness Injection Molding Design Guide.

Ananse and the Gum Body Statue

as told by masks

Greed

Ananse covets the food on his family’s farm and wants it all for himself

Deceit

Ananse hatches a con to get the object of his desire

Shame

Ananse’s con is uncovered and he is shamed by his village

Physical Prototyping

I honed the snap fit feel with 3D printed parts before machining the mask molds and finetuning the joint dimensions with polypropylene prototypes. I adjusted the figurine models accordingly.