In the year of our Lord 1668,
Satan’s rage is unleashed upon
Sweden. Suddenly women are accused
of witchcraft and consorting with the Devil.
The king dispatches a witchcraft committee
with the right to mete out the death penalty.
Judgements fall – a spark that ignites the bon-
fires of the witches throughout the land.
‘The Great Noise’ begins. And before it
quiets, axes and pyres extinguish
the lives of almost 300 women.
WITCHES – the exhibition
Step into an exhibition of both dreams and truth! The texts recount true lives and events in history – the pictures are imaginations of the past. When witchcraft trials raged, no artists depicted rural life. Nor could photographers, as the modern camera was not invented until two centuries later. Imagine, though, we had photographers of the women who were convinced, the children who testified against them and the men who passed judgement. How might they have appeared? Would their souls have presented themselves to us as living, thinking, feeling individuals? Using artificial intelligence, we have made portraits of these women, children and men. With these images, we depict events and myths from Swedish witchcraft trails called ‘The Great Noise’.
Welcome to a truly unreal experience.
