Archetypal Explorations
As an expressive performance artist Pash Galbavy uses masks, movement, and stoytelling to bring awareness to social justice, mental health, and environmental issues. It begins when she hand crafts each mask to embody a specific archetype. She then designs the accompanying costume to embody the archetype in performance. Her goal is to present both positive and challenging emotions to help people see and cope with these emotions in themselves.
A fierce eco-activist, she recently created a powerful series about Wetiko vs. the Planet. Weitko is an archetype of Greed that is plundering our resources and destroying our environment. Another project was Hope and Trauma in a Poisoned Land, which was included in an educational art show about uranium mining. She lives what she preaches; she drives a 100% solar powered electric car and buys only recycled and reused props.
Sometimes her themes are more personal, as in her one-woman presentation, the Body Reclamation Project. She does workshops in schools teaching mask making and self-awareness. Several programs were for the Mental Health Coalition/National Health Awareness month.
Pash Galbavy, movement artist Juanita Bosman, and I are now collaborating on an ongoing project to document some of these archetypes as they relate to one another. All masks and concepts by Pash Galbavy.
This portfolio shows the following archetypes, so far: The Actualizer (Pash Galbavy) and Inertia (Juanita Bosman); The Mute (Pash Galbavy) and the Visionary (Juanita Bosman); and, The Eccentric Artist (Pash Galbavy) and The Magical Child (Juanita Bosman). Recently we also worked on The Tree Keepers, which is a series of images of Pash and Juanita communing with Old Venerable, an ancient Sycamore Tree tenaciously rooted in a remote wash.
