Sasha Galitzky is calling attention to the planet's shrinking glaciers through her performance art.Paul Zizka/The Globe and Mail
A Jasper, Alta., performance artist is calling attention to the planet’s shrinking glaciers by hanging precariously above them in silks, and capturing stunning portraits of what she calls “fleeting moments.”
Alpinist Sasha Galitzki has combined her mountain-climbing skills with aerial dance to create a new kind of endurance performance, in which she dangles bare hand in subzero temperatures above frozen caverns, often with no safety net or rope.
After working closely with still photographers to record her process, she’s now also producing a short documentary film with director Trixie Pacis, which aims to play in the festival circuit this fall before becoming available online early next year.
The Globe spoke with Galitzki about her process and how she creates images in which – despite being so nakedly exposed in brutal environments – the landscape is what comes across as vulnerable.
What was the genesis of this idea: Why glaciers?
Ice fascinates me. On the one hand, it’s hard and cold and brutal, in the sense that we humans are not designed to survive alongside it. But on the other hand, it’s so fragile – a little warmth and it’s gone. Last winter, I performed in a 50-foot-high ice cave. One year later, it has shrunk to half that height. There’s a good chance it’ll be gone entirely by next winter. Nature often feels so constant, yet in this case there’s an actual deadline.
Why is that important to note or document?
Ice creates sculpture you can barely believe, in colours and hues that seem out of this world. And glaciers do all this on a scale that’s both awe-inspiring and, increasingly, tragic. Visiting the same glacier twice is heartbreaking: you can see its disintegration in front of your eyes. That is a loss that I feel keenly.
Galitzky is also producing a short documentary film with director Trixie Pacis, which aims to play in the festival circuit this fall.Paul Zizka/The Globe and Mail
What do you hope people see in these images?
As a performance artist, I think the lines and the angles, that’s part of the visual art of it. I’m going to wear what’s going to keep me safe, and relatively comfortable, but it’s also going to create shapes or angles or lines that will be visually intriguing. But also a way to show respect to these environments. They are so fragile themselves, and by acknowledging my own fragility within them, I hope to somehow meet them halfway.
How does the performance reflect that?
You can’t stay there. And you can’t be there for very long. Maybe a couple minutes in the air before my hands start to turn purple and I’ve got to come down, or I’m going to fall out of the sky. So there’s a sense of, like, ‘Okay, I only have these fleeting moments, and I’m going to feel every millisecond.’ Most of your body is being squeezed or balanced on a very small piece of fabric or metal, so there’s a clock that ticks the longer I’m up there.
So far you’ve documented this all in photos, but you’re now working on a film. Why?
It’s movement art, and a good photographer can capture movement, absolutely, but I did sometimes feel that there was a bit of a missed opportunity to capture the dance, to document the movement.
On that note, what’s it like performing for a photographer rather than an audience in these remote locations?
The glaciers’ beauty, not to mention their impact on global ecosystems, is like nothing else in this world, so if I had a choice between performing for an audience or traipsing out to a glacier, I would use the glacier every time. That, to me, is more rewarding than the applause of an audience.
You were a professional ski patroller for seven years in Tahoe, Calif., and you’re also an accomplished rock climber. How important is that background here?
It’s crucial. I couldn’t do this if I didn’t have the aerial background, obviously. But I couldn’t do this without my mountain background, either. They’re both equally important; sometimes I’m three or four storeys off the ground. There are some very serious risks involved. My ability to manage those is based on many, many years of work and experience and training in a number of different disciplines.
You first started rigging these outdoor winter performances during the pandemic, while living in Waterton, Alta. – a Parks Canada town of about 20 that is closed to visitors. What kind of role did isolation play in developing this practice, and capturing these images?
In hindsight, I think it was really the seed of everything. Isolation forces things to grow in hard places. Instead of performing in front of a live audience, I was performing for the wind and the trees. I really like leaning into that space between athletics and art, and figuring out how I can push myself in those ways simultaneously.
This interview has been edited and condensed.