Witches

Witch-hunting belongs to one of the cruellest episodes in human history. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, there was a social consensus in Europe whereby all women were potential witches; the social and legal groundwork was laid to legitimize thousands of executions by burning at the stake and by hanging. This persecution was aimed at stripping the wisest and most independent women of autonomy and social relevance, returning them to the home and subordinating them to the reproductive role.

In popular wisdom, witches were non-corporeal entities, but they began to be identified as women after the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum in 1486 by the inquisitors H. Kramer and J. Sprenger. The authors alleged that witches were women since their feminine weaknesses made them inferior and prone to demonic temptation.

Taking advantage of popular beliefs and fears, inquisitors, judges and witch-hunters devised fantastical and grotesque stories about witches meeting with the devil to do evil deeds; they confessed after lengthy torture sessions.

In the Pyrenees: mountains that form a natural border between Spain and France, took place some of the earliest and most intense persecutions. In Catalonia, the first local laws in Europe to condemn people for witchcraft were promulgated and, in the small town of Laspaules, history’s largest massacre of women in a single such trial took place. In the 17th century, on the other side of the Pyrenees in France, the Court of Bordeaux became convinced that women in the French Basque Country had made pacts with the devil and so it ordered an especially bloodthirsty witch-hunt.

Art has faithfully trumpeted the accusers’ stories, representing these women as old, ugly and bad: such are the stereotypes of legend or folklore. The real marked, condemned and murdered woman, however, is erased from history or ridiculed.

This photographic work follows the historical thread to create a visual map of the events and sites where witch-hunting took place, identifying the symbols, traditions and stigmas that have been perpetuated. In addition, it establishes a relationship between the condemned women and women who live in these places today. Who would be the witches now? They are the protagonists of a story which aims to preserve and dignify the memory of those who were murdered.