INTRO

Five women accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death during the witch hunts are brought to life in portraits created by five artists, chosen for their original vision and stylistic versatility. Each artist was assigned a different "witch" who died in a specific century, so that each portrait contributes to reconstructing the time span of the persecution, from the 14th to the 18th century.

The cycle opens with Petronilla de Meath, burned in 1324 and the first documented victim of the persecution, and closes with Anna Goldi, the last to be condemned in 1782. Among them are Matteuccia da Todi, burned in 1428; Ane Koldings, implicated in the Danish trials and burned at the stake in 1590; and Merga Bien, burned in 1603.

The combustion, filmed and edited in reverse time as usual, allowed the portraits to recompose themselves from their ashes, symbolically transforming death into an act of rebirth. Consumed by the flames, the surfaces of the works revealed unexpected shapes and textures, imbuing the portraits with a profound visual impact.

The shots were taken with an Anamorphic Macro lens, in a vertical aspect ratio (9/16) and a resolution of 2160 x 3840

ASHES

The ashes of the works were collected and incorporated into five transparent resin tablets, one for each portrait. Each tablet preserves the disordered and irrevocable arrangement of the burned material. These are not relics or derivative works, but devices that retain what cannot be reconstructed. They complete the visual cycle by opposing the digital rebirth of what remains, no longer form or function