Basque & Spanish bellow
🌱
People often say that making a book is like having a baby. To me, it feels more like the moment your children move out.
For ten years, I’ve been recreating the world described by women accused of witchcraft: magic ointments, animal metamorphoses, giving birth to toads and nursing them, flying on a horseback, fire, and rotten apples. All this time, these images lived only with me; as of yesterday, anyone can hold them in their hands.
It’s a strange feeling, losing control over what will happen to those pictures or how they’ll be interpreted. Just like when a daughter leaves home: now her own adventure begins. ✨
Making this book has been incredibly difficult. Sometimes I wonder how we keep making books despite so many limitations. But I had a wild idea to make it possible: bringing together
@overlapse and
@edicionescomisura , the two publishers who have trusted my work from the start. This coedition made It possible to tell this story in Basque (the language of the Witches), Spanish, and English.
Thanks to
@insituartfestival we won the
@gobiernovasco_eus publishing grant to print it.
@marinacmeyer spent weeks lost in a cloud of witches, just as I did while taking the photos, to design this complex and beautiful object. Amaia Nausia contributed the history of witchcraft in the Basque Country, and Alice, a descendant of one of the women accused in Salem, connected witches from all over the world.
Heartfelt thanks also to
@museodebrujas_zugarramurdi and
@getxokultura for their support.
I truly hope this book serves to demystify the figure of the witch, to separate her from mythology and, by giving these women back their names and surnames, finally humanize them.
Fly high, witches!
EUS ❤️
Liburu bat egitea haur bat izatea bezalakoa dela esan ohi da. Nik ordea seme-alabak etxetik joaten diren unearen antza ikusten diot.
Hamar urte daramatzat sorginkeriaz akusatutako emakumeek deskribatzen zuten mundua birsortzen: ukendu magikoak, animalia bihurtzeak, apoak erditzea eta bularra ematea, zaldi gaineko hegaldiak... Denbora guzti honetan zehar irudi horiek nire buruan egon dira baina, atzotik, edozeinen eskuetan egon daitezke.
