Coronavirus social distancing for Paris gallery achieved with 'deconfinement' hats
Wide-brimmed paper hats to keep visitors apart during COVID-19
An art gallery in Paris has sought inspiration in ancient China to help it enforce social distancing, by providing hats with winged extensions for visitors.
The colorful paper-mâché hats are modeled on headgear from the Song dynasty, which ruled China between 960 and 1279, with extensions just long enough to keep wearers the one-meter (three feet) apart stipulated in France’s COVID-19 regulations.
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The first Song emperor is said to have ordered his officials to wear winged hats so that they could not gossip without being heard.
Artists wear colorful "deconfinement hats" made of papier-mache and inspired by Song dynasty headwear, for social distancing, at 59 Rivoli gallery in Paris as it prepares a general reopening later in the week following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease in France, June 3, 2020. (REUTERS/Benoit Tessier)
“Back in the day, these were worn to prevent public officials from whispering,” Dominique Pouzol, who designed the hats for the 59 Rivoli gallery, told Reuters. “And so, there was already then this notion of social distancing.”
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Some of Pouzol’s creations carry a political message too, painted in the colours of the rainbow is a nod to gay rights.
“The hats are to protect us from COVID-19,” Pouzol said. “But I said to myself perhaps they can also shield us from ...human viciousness, from small-minded people.”