Mask Making, Soul Making

Collisions 2013

Mask-making, Soul-making: a mask-maker’s exploration of construction

 

“Imbued with life by its wearer, the mask brings the god to earth, it establishes his reality, mingles him with the society of men”

 

If Claude Levi-Strauss’s assertion is correct, then who are the “gods” living within my own masks? This project explores the embodiment of the figures contained within a set of masks built over the course of my studies at Central School of Speech and Drama. I look at the process of mask-construction as a means of active imagination, a potential access point into the process of individuation, towards the construction of a personal mythology. Exploring the relationship between mask-maker and mask, using the writings of James Hillman and his polytheistic critique of Jungian psychology, this piece endeavors to animate the multiplicities of “me” within a performance lecture.