© Katarzyna Majak, Natalia LL - an Artist, from ‘Women of Power‘ series, courtesy of the Artist and Porter Contemporary Gallery
Bielska Gallery BWA 3 Maja 11 43-300 Bielsko-Bia?a Pologne
"Women of Power" is a series of 29 portraits, videos and conversations with modern-day Polish witches, healers, enchantresses, visionaries and spiritual leaders.
Christianity, introduced now many centuries ago, erased almost all traces of paganism, witchcraft and shamanic traditions. For some, especially women, this has left a yearning for something more. Katarzyna Majak, feeling a personal void and the need for other knowledge set out on a search for women identifying themselves with the spirituality of their ancestors, be it Mother Goddess, pagan beliefs, and other old sources of wisdom. Her fascinating journey from woman to woman (the youngest in her early 30s, the oldest in her late 80s) led her all over her native land as she sought female wisdom and the plurality of spiritual paths hidden within Poland’s mono-religious society. Supported by Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
© Katarzyna Majak, Bea – the one who Listens to the Woods, from ‘Women of Power‘ series, courtesy of the Artist and Porter Contemporary Gallery
The project has been presented, in the Porter Contemporary Gallery in New York, the Slovene Ethnographic Museum in Ljubljana, the Central European House of Photography in Bratislava, as part of the exhibition 31 Women in Art Photography at the Hasted Kraeutler gallery in New York and in Bunkier Sztuki gallery in Cracow.
© Katarzyna Majak, Joanna – prowadzi kręgi i ceremonie dla kobiet, from ‘Women of Power‘ series, courtesy of the Artist and Porter Contemporary Gallery
The event is accompanied by a discussion panel open to the public 22nd of June, 4pm:
“Magic- the primeval Mother of Arts“ conducted by dr Jerzy Bąbel, Dariusz Misiuna, Aldo Vargas-Tetmajer, conducted by: dr Jerzy Tomasz Bąbel- a primeval archaeologist, former worker of the Archaeological Museum in Warsaw and the Museum of History and Archaeology in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, Dariusz Misiuna – a cultural sociologist, creator of Okultura, editor-in-chief of magazines: Hermaion and Trans / wizje and Aldo Vargas-Tetmajer - an expert on shamanism and pre-Columbian cultures of South America, a lecturer at the Jagiellonian University (Cracow).
© Katarzyna Majak, Maria, a Healer and a Visionary, from ‘Women of Power‘ series, courtesy of the Artist and Porter Contemporary Gallery
Photographies et vignette © Katarzyna Majak