MALLEUS MALEFICARUM/ THE HAMMER OF WITCHES
Idea: Iveta Pole
co-authors: Katrina Neiburga (LV), Daniela Vetra (LV), Iveta Pole (LV), Agnese
Krivade (LV), Jette Loona Hermanis (EE/LV), Lea Sekulic (HR), Liisa Saaremäel (EE), Martina
Georgina Buhagiar (MT)
co-authors: Katrina Neiburga (LV), Daniela Vetra (LV), Iveta Pole (LV), Agnese
Krivade (LV), Jette Loona Hermanis (EE/LV), Lea Sekulic (HR), Liisa Saaremäel (EE), Martina
Georgina Buhagiar (MT)
Manifesto
the post-feminist female
the post-feminist female
an ecofeminist utopia
A recent study into the legend of a ‘witch’, conducted by a group of researchers in University of Brussels (summarized in exhibition WITCHES Brussels, October 2021-January 2022) un-surprisingly found that the whole traditional witch imagery - ranging from a young nymphomaniac riding a broomstick, to an old hag drinking baby blood - has been invented by medieval men in power positions - whether in church, inquisition, medicine or art. Some phenomena, the study argues, such as the "witch sabbath" probably didn't even have any correspondence in reality. A whole culture created as a projection of male fears and fantasies.
What does it mean for us?
Finding ourselves on the threshold of crumbling patriarchy, we stare in our mirrors as if for the first time. Behind us - centuries of being defined by the "male gaze" - simultaneously demonizing and eroticizing, torn between desire to dominate and to worship, to rape and to pedestalize. With our bodies being dominated by capitalism - with the post-Descartian science and Christian church having gradually eliminated the pre-war, pre-patriarchal traditional wisdoms of healing, rites of passing and arriving, spaces of being together and emotional processing.
I just woke up alone. Fires caused by the first three waves of feminism are extinguished, streets are washed, the dead are buried and the children have grown. Estranged from our land and the Mothers, robbed of our bodies, having killed the Rapist, we re-emerge in dystopian emptiness. The morning after - realizing how deeply our identities and relationships have been poisoned by patriarchy - lifetimes of shame, blame and self-hate.
We will wake up to realize - there is nothing left to obey or to resist. No, we do not regret. The patriarchy killed itself in a collective burn-out, in the delusion of production. It fell into it’s own bottomless pit, the split between body and the mind. In other words, it expired - due to the absence of feminine wisdom.
And what now?
Do we remember or do we re-invent?
We will stand up to the challenge. We owe it to our suffragette sisters who fought for this morning to arrive. We owe it to our burned grandmothers. We owe it to the women of Bucha massacre and to mothers of Srebrenica.
The post-patriarchal society will be reborn through our hearts, minds and vulvas. We will be the Divine Portal for the new world, to be led by the feminine energy.
Looking for the lost WITCH
We will go to the Earth. We will go to the Heart. We will go to each other. We will go to the body. We will ask - what is she? How is she?
And what is the female gaze? Can we even stand that?
A group of female-identifying, female-born bodies - of different ages and professions - united by passion for performing arts and ecofeminism (?) - have embarked upon a journey through different feminine archetypes (and stereotypes), by the honesty of their own living bodies and hearts. We are mortal and yet infinite - and each one of us carries the lost secret - the WITCH CODE? A quantum spaceship? In the same non-linear way folk songs, fairy tales, ancient ritual sites and plants carry the lost wisdoms.
The concept of WITCH will be our entrance door. Some parts will be choreographed / co-directed, while others will be birthed right in front of eyes of the viewer, through movement, voice, light, sound improvisation, performative practice and other tools acquired along our journeys, such as culinary, hunt or hypnosis. The viewer will be invited to join the contemplation, to participate in the quest for HER, guided by a collective longing, to answer for themselves - who is she?
She who feels herself. She who kills herself. She who creates herself. To excavate, to recreate the untold story of humanity, to restore to the picture the ever-missing part of collective consciousness - the story of a female gaze, and the world according to the female.
