SURGICAL MASK AS A SYMBOL OF LIFE TRANSFORMATION

The article examines the history of the emergence and use of surgical masks. Despite such a significant variety of masks types, the meaning and main function of them are the same in any case: to cover the face, not to let you see emotions, experience, feelings that are always reflected on the face. Hiding the face from others, translated from the language of symbols, means the symbolic "death of the person". The person who puts on the mask "dies", ceases to exist in the familiar form for others and is "reborn" in a new form. Such self-transformation affects not only a different perception for others, but also self-awareness. The surgical mask, updated during the coronavirus pandemic, is becoming a part of people's lives instead of a medical attribute. Today there is a whole world behind these masks: human health, environmental crisis, identity crisis, protest symbol, and surgical masks exacerbate alienation and create an external standardization and template. We would like this symbolic meaning of confusion and fear, loneliness and isolation, uncertainty about the future to turn into a sign of care and a gesture of community of people.