We would like you to take your inspiration from an important element in Belgian culture, which we might term the 'absurd', an appetite for bizarre and strange imagery. This strand emerges in the work of graphic artists such as Hergé (who wrote Tin Tin) which we shall see for ourselves in the city's famous museum devoted to comic strip art as well as the work of key Belgian artists such as Paul Nougé, Marcel Broodthaers and Michael Borremans. You are all familiar with the work of the painter Magritte, no doubt. He is the famous Belgian painter known for his paradoxical paintings in which logic takes a back seat. We shall see his work in Belgium. Objects inexplicably mutate, shape-shifting and changing their scale. Often classified as a Surrealist, Magritte is better understood as representative of a specifically Belgian response to the same stimuli that evolved into  Paris-based French Surrealism. We would like you to look at Magritte's work closely before embarking on the masks. Think carefully how his work might help influence your design - don't slavishly transcribe his style, rather we would like you to explore his thinking, his interest in the way painting may be used to question the nature of the real and the imagined, often fusing the two in lyrical and perplexing ways. It is this approach we see in so much contemporary Belgian work.

The second key focus of this project revolves around the concept of shift. We would like your masks to be capable of flat-packing - after all, you will need to take them to Brussels in your luggage. But that provides another opportunity beyond mere practicality - we want your masks to unfurl, to unfold, to flap open, to articulate and shift in exciting ways. You will need to be ingenious in this, thinking how to use simple mechanisms such as hinges, pivots, pleats or rouching. There are impressive precedents for you to explore: look at the head pieces made by the German artist Rebecca Horn which use real bird feathers to create head pieces which unfurl and became vital props in her amazing, magical performances.  Of course, there are important fashion designers to explore too who make adaptable garments, including the Turkish-born British designer Hussein Chalayan. Try to find your own sources of inspiration to add a contextual grounding for your project.