The Mahavidyas (2006) was a multi-year project, developed by the Sometimes Collective – Maxine Henryson, photography; Johnna Davis, costume; Melinda Buckwalter, movement. This video describes the initial collaboration and the performance project that arose from it. (See Space in Time, an article on another Sometimes Collective project.)
ArtSpeaking: “Our interest is to explore the female archetypes of the Mahavidyas, ten Hindu goddesses, iconically depicted in bizarre and disturbing circumstances—standing on male corpses or copulating couples, garlanded with decapitated male heads. In one case, a deity is shown holding her own blood-spurting, severed head. The goddesses represent qualities of destruction, addiction, and impurity as well as prosperity, fertility, and compassion. Our curiosity is in creating contemporary representations of these deities and, through our own artistic process, to come to understand the ancient iconography and archetypes.” the Sometimes Collective
The Mahavidyas work samples from Melinda Buckwalter on Vimeo.
