Witches

The witch hunts are among the most brutal episodes in human history. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, at the height of the Renaissance, a social consensus emerged in Europe that saw all women as potential witches. This laid the social and legal foundations for the legitimization of thousands of executions by fire or hanging.

Some of the most significant witch hunt events in Europe took place in the Pyrenees, where accusations of witchcraft were pursued by three types of justice: civil, inquisitorial and episcopal. Catalonia recorded the highest number of victims and passed the first known local law in Europe that recognized witchcraft as a crime, prosecuting and condemning it. Aragón was the second Spanish region in number of women murdered; Villanúa and Laspaules stand out as especially meaningful locations in the history of witchcraft, as they had the highest number of women executed. To a lesser extent, women from the valleys of Roncal, Baztán and Salazar in Navarra were also killed for witchcraft. In France, the Bordeaux Tribunal, convinced that women in the French Basque Country had made pacts with the devil, led a particularly bloody witch hunt in the 17th century.

For centuries, the world of art has echoed the discourse of the persecutors, portraying these women as old, ugly and evil. Meanwhile, the real women, the ones accused, condemned and ultimately killed, were erased from history or ridiculed. Aware that they were not witches, but simply women, Judith Prat seeks through this photographic work to help recover their memory and tell their true story, in order to rebuild a shared imaginary that respects them and restores their dignity as victims.