Imagine RIT preview: fan favorite facial-casting exhibit returns

Phil Broikos, longtime visitor to the life mask creation exhibit at Imagine RIT, collects his facial casts to mark his aging process each year.

From his first observation of a show-stopping display at Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival, Phil Broikos was “smitten” by the process of making life masks.

The “Prosthetics to Special Effects: Life Mask Creation” exhibit — a longtime fan favorite at the festival — allows attendees to sign up for a facial casting to create a realistic, feature-rich 3D portrait of their faces.

Broikos, a regular Imagine RIT visitor and local singer-songwriter, is the exhibit’s most frequent flyer since discovering it in 2016. He visits the booth every year, ready for RIT College of Art and Design students, led by Professor Joyce Hertzson, to work with him on a new life mask. He keeps his casts as a marker of the year, treating the annual experience as a creative companion to his ongoing personal initiative, titled “A Day in Music.”

“I have a 24-year music project where I create and release an hour of music each year,” Broikos said. “So along with the multi-decade journey of seeing how my music develops, I love the idea that I have an accompanying piece of art to show my own aging process as I transition into senior citizenry.”

Imagine RIT is set for 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, April 25. The family-friendly festival, free and open to the public, features more than 400 campus-wide exhibits and projects demonstrating the creative, innovative spirit of RIT students, faculty, and staff.