Haiek danak sorginak
Witch-hunts were a historical phenomenon that took place between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Many people, mainly women, who carried out tasks, possessed knowledge or had attitudes that were rejected by the religious authorities were accused of witchcraft and in many cases executed for it.
The Bilbao photographer Bego Antón has researched and documented the lives of women who were accused of being sorginak (witches) in the Basque Country and the circumstances in which this fanatical, misogynistic finger pointing took place. Medicinal practices, social relationships or dissenting sexual behaviour –which often took place within a community– were singled out as demonic.
Antón’s work shows a series of historical engravings that include confessions obtained under torture, with staged photographs based on traditional iconography and the research carried out by the photographer. Haiek danak sorginak (All of them witches) pays homage to the figure of all those women who over hundreds of years were denounced, attacked and killed for living outside the norm.
Born in Bilbao in 1983, she studied journalism and specialized in documentary photography in Barcelona. Her work dissects human behavior and reflects on our psychological and moral involvement with the natural world. Her work has been published in the New York Times, National Geographic, Esquire, BBC, The Guardian, Le Monde, CNN Photos or The British Journal of Photography, among others. She has exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, PhotoEspaña, Kutxa Kultur Gunea / Tabakalera (San Sebastian), Centro Niemeyer (Gijon), Canal Isabel II or Centro Centro (Madrid), as well as in New York, Switzerland, Germany and Iceland. In 2017 she received the Revelation Award from PhotoEspaña. She has given talks at FotoWeek DC, Santander Photo or Formentera Fotográfica, among others. She currently works as a photography teacher at LaBasad, EFTI and Idep schools.
OUTDOOR EXHIBITION
8 HAIEK DANAK SORGINAK
Venue: San Nikolas square
OUTDOOR INSTALLATION
HAIEK DANAK SORGINAK
Venue: Metro Algorta
Address: Station square
Collaborator:
