"Women of Power": Modern Witches from Poland

EVERY DAY PHOTOGRAPHERS AROUND THE WORLD looking for new ways to tell stories or to capture what we previously did not notice. We choose interesting photo projects and ask their authors what they wanted to say. This week we are publishing a series of "Women of Power" by photographer Katarzyna Mayak, who has found witches, druids, sorcerers, midwives and other representatives of alternative beliefs in modern Poland and tried to understand what their spiritual experience can teach women of the 21st century.

My life has always been associated with photography, but if I used to shoot more myself, today I often act as a curator and consultant. I am also the artistic director and member of the program council of the Warsaw Photo Days festival. I really switched to photography fifteen years ago, having just graduated from the university, where I studied Russian and English literature. As a result, I also entered the Poznan University of the Arts and graduated from there with a doctoral degree and a thesis on the study of modern photography and how the style of dress reflects a person’s personality.

Witchcraft exists in many different, often isolated cultures. The witch is an archetype, it is a woman endowed with special knowledge. In a sense, this is another aspect of femininity that has been suppressed by society for a long time, so I am absolutely sure that the time has come to turn the situation in the opposite direction. Conceiving the "Women of Power" project, I decided to find modern "reincarnations" of witches in Poland - a seemingly mono-religious country. I wanted to show how actually the spiritual life of our society is multi-layered.

Those beliefs and rituals that my heroines practice are not subject to condemnation. Their practices arose long before us, they exist today and will not go anywhere in the future, regardless of our opinions with you. My task was to prove to the whole world that the witches never disappeared anywhere. Witchcraft is a phenomenon that has no geographical restrictions. In Poland, as in other countries where one religion dominates, the existence of witches is simply not so easy to notice. This is partly why they themselves need more courage to admit to themselves who they are. I had no idea that in the course of working on the project I would find such a variety of beliefs and practices, I had an incredibly exciting journey from the heroine to the heroine.

Initially, I wanted to explore how witchcraft helps women grow spiritually, but the topic was too broad, so I had to focus on certain aspects of female spirituality. I stumbled upon my first heroines when I was looking for examples of female wisdom outside of mainstream religions. I grew up in the days of communism, in a Catholic family, so I had never encountered any witches or other alternative beliefs in practice before. Witches have always been scary characters from tales and films for me. Therefore, while working on the project, I decided to get rid of the usual label and call my heroines "Women of Power". To be a witch is to possess some knowledge. The women I photographed and interviewed for this project decided to cultivate this knowledge in themselves. They recognized their essence. They know and are able to do a lot: they are travnitsy, midwives, women who are able to heal with the help of art and initiate into new religions.

I know that men also do witchcraft. It was important for me to tell exactly about women, and I hope that my heroines will become a source of inspiration for someone. Through them, I tried to show the diversity of spiritual paths that can be chosen. This is what I wanted to demonstrate to Polish women and women in any other country in the world. My thoughts were perfectly summed up by the famous Polish writer Olga Tokarchuk, who was the author of the opening word for my book "Women of Power". She stressed that these "women demonstrate what we all once lost: the power of matriarchal cults, access to sources of power, sensuality, and with them the right to natural childbirth, dignity, strength, feminine art, connection with nature and finally the great a lot of women's traditions, most of which were forgotten, lost or deliberately destroyed. "