<p>Katrīna Neiburga, Ludvigs Eglitis Neiburgs, <em>Sekretjiki</em>, 2021. Detail. Courtesy of the artist.</p>
<p>Katrīna Neiburga, Ludvigs Eglitis Neiburgs, <em>Sekretjiki</em>, 2021. Detail. Courtesy of the artist.</p>

No. 44: Witches/Wisdom

Managing editors: Katarzyna Bojarska, Magdalena Moskalewicz, Dorota Sosnowska

Katrīna Neiburga, Ludvigs Eglitis Neiburgs, Sekretjiki, 2021. Detail. Courtesy of the artist.

This issue was supported by the SWPS University, Warsaw, University of Warsaw, and the program of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from Culture Promotion Fund - State Purpose Fund.

Table of Contents

Editorial

  1. Witches / Wisdom

    Katarzyna Bojarska, Dorota Sosnowska, Magdalena Moskalewicz
    Katarzyna Bojarska, Dorota Sosnowska et al., ”Witches / Wisdom”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/en/archive/44witches-wisdom/witches-wisdom

    Introductory essay for this issue devoted to the relationship of witches and wisdom. It explores the intersection of historical wise women, environmental catastrophe, and anti-capitalist resistance through a predominantly Central European lens. By reclaiming the figure of the witch, the contributors challenge dominant "pseudo-rationalist" narratives and seek alternative forms of knowledge, relationality, and healing in a time of global urgency. The issue as a constellation of texts and images seeks to restore voices to marginalized histories and imagine alternative, more inclusive modes of being human.

    keywords: witches; anti-capitalist activism; ecofeminism; wisdom; knowledge; decolonialism

Close Up

  1. Between Magical Marxism and Heresy: The Progressive Spirituality of Natalia LL

    Kamila Dworniczak
    Kamila Dworniczak, ”Between Magical Marxism and Heresy.”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/en/archive/44witches-wisdom/between-magical-marxism-and-heresy

    Mona Chollet, examining the witch genealogy of contemporary feminism, pointed out that magic can be a “weapon of the oppressed,” a tool for alter-globalist community recreation in an era of deepening late capitalist crisis. She saw that valuing irrationality is not a reactionary gesture, but quite the opposite – it opens up space for new emancipatory possibilities. Magic and politics as “progressive spirituality” come together in an alliance of feminist and queer practices. Taking into account Chollet’s reflections – and those of other intellectuals and researchers such as Silvia Federici, Starhawk, Katarzyna Szopa – it is worth asking why topics such as spirituality and magic are so rarely discussed in reflections on the Polish female art scene. Szopa drew attention to the “witches of Polish women’s poetry” in the People’s Republic of Poland, to the closely related topos of witches, revolution and melancholy they used, but similar reflections are nowhere to be found in art history. Meanwhile, witchcraft functioned at the very heart of artistic practices. The magical activities and interest in spirituality of Natalia LL, a leading figure in feminist genealogy, although difficult to interpret today, are an indispensable aspect of her version of “doing gender.” Does making them more legible – and at the same time treating them “seriously” – allow us to look at the overlooked tropes of female artistic expression in socialist Poland? Can these recognitions lead to practising art history itself differently – also as a heretical herstory? The article aims to open up reflection based on the answers to these questions.

    keywords: witches; Natalia LL; feminism; magic; progressive spirituality; women's art

  2. Rebels, Herbalists, Activists, and Guides: The Figures of Witches in Contemporary Curatorial Projects

    Marta Kudelska
    Marta Kudelska, ”Rebels, Herbalists, Activists, and Guides”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/en/archive/44witches-wisdom/rebels-herbalists-activists-and-guides

    The article analyzes six contemporary curatorial projects invoking the figure of the witch as a tool of social critique and recovery of female knowledge. Combining curatorial and scholarly approaches, the author uses an interdisciplinary methodology (visual studies, art history, feminist theory). The main thesis argues that the witch, as a liminal figure, enables the reconstruction of excluded narratives of embodiment, spirituality, and resistance. The text emphasizes the transformative power of art and the diversity of curatorial strategies addressing women’s histories and experiences.

    keywords: witch; art curating; exhibition; contemporary art; female collectivity

  3. Lost in the Magical Garden

    Flóra Gadó
    Flóra Gadó, ”Lost in the Magical Garden”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/en/archive/44witches-wisdom/lost-in-the-magical-garden

    The author analyses the resurgence of magic and spirituality in contemporary art, with particular focus on the figure of the witch. She concentrates on artistic practices which investigate alternative and marginalized knowledges through this figure, often interpreted as a healer, a midwife, and someone who is in a close relationship with nature, based on exhibitions she has co-curated. She introduces the “return” of the witch in contemporary art and how this is connected to the increased interest in alternative medicine and herbalism. Subsequently, she turns to four contemporary artists (or duos) from Central-Eastern Europe who are interested in the healing and potentially dangerous power of plants, the medical aspects of nature, and the often overlooked knowledge associated with them. Artists such as Ana Likar, Jana Zatvarnická, Karina Mendreczky & Katalin Kortmann-Járay, and Lőrinc Borsos incorporate the stories and motifs of specific plants – for example, St. John’s wort or deadly nightshade – into their work, referencing both the historical narratives of witch hunts as well as the potential healing / destroying power of those plants, used by women in village communities. Through an analysis of their paintings, installations, and videos, the author explores how their artistic practices reactivate plant-based healing knowledge and reimagine its relevance in contemporary society.

    keywords: witchcraft; witch trials; healing; midwife; herbalism; traditional medicine; folklore; forgotten knowledge; contemporary art; research-based practice

  4. Magic, Fashion, Alternative Societies and Capitalism

    Alicja Raciniewska, Magdalena Ziółkowska
    Alicja Raciniewska, Magdalena Ziółkowska, ”Magic, Fashion, Alternative Societies and Capitalism ”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/en/archive/44witches-wisdom/fashion-and-magic

    The recurring iconography of witches in the collections of Alexander McQueen, Rei Kawakubo, and Rick Owens, the tarot theme in Dior's designs, and the occult and pagan motifs at Schiaparelli seem to be more than just another attempt to use exoticism or foreignness as fashion inspiration. They remind us of the connections between magic and fashion described by fashion researchers, as well as expressing a broader cultural trend. Taking the field of fashion as a starting point, the article focuses on analyzing the trend of the revival of esotericism and dark romanticism, as well as the emergence and functioning of groups organizing rituals and ceremonies based on traditional beliefs (neo-pagan, neo-shamanic, or Wiccan groups). The analysis of case studies shows that magical practices are treated as tools for social transformation, deconstruction of established hierarchies and stereotypes, and building communities based on inclusiveness, egalitarianism, and solidarity, which is supposed to be an alternative to the dominant capitalist and authoritarian paradigms. Analyzing the interrelationships between magic, fashion, and capitalism from the perspective of anthropology and fashion studies, the article attempts to answer the question of whether the analyzed solutions constitute a better response to the challenges of contemporary social crises and whether the fact that they are fashionable may be a manifestation of resistance to the typical principles of capitalism, or whether they are rather used in a different (instrumental) way by the mechanism of capitalism to reinforce its status quo.

    keywords: fashion; magic; witch; capitalism; shamanism; neo-paganism; Wiccan groups

  5. The Hologram Feminist, Peer-to-Peer Health for a Post-Pandemic Future

    Cassie Thornton
    Cassie Thornton, ”The Hologram”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/pl/archiwum/44-wiedzmy-wiedza/hologram

    Polish translation of an excerpt of the book The Hologram Feminist, Peer-to-Peer Health for a Post-Pandemic Future (2020) published by Pluto Press. In an era when capitalism leaves so many to suffer and to die, with neoliberal ‘self-care’ offering little more than a bandaid, how can we take health and care back into our hands? Cassie Thornton puts forward a bold vision for revolutionary care: a viral, peer-to-peer feminist health network. The premise is simple: three people – a ‘triangle’ – meet on a regular basis, digitally or in person, to focus on the physical, mental and social health of a fourth – the ‘hologram’. The hologram, in turn, teaches their caregivers how to give and also receive care; each member of their triangle becomes a hologram for another, different triangle, and so the system expands. Drawing on radical models developed in the Greek solidarity clinics during a decade of crisis, and directly engaging with discussions around mutual aid and the coronavirus pandemic, The Hologram develops the skills and relationships we desperately need for the anti-capitalist struggles of the present, and the post-capitalist society of the future. One part art, one part activism, one part science fiction, this book offers the reader a guide to establishing a Hologram network as well as reflections on this cooperative work in progress. Source

    keywords: Hologram; feminism; health care; medicine; capitalism; crisis; collaboration

Viewpoint

  1. fading sound / pulsation / the ritual score

    Joanna Mąkowska
    Joanna Mąkowska, ”fading sound”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/en/archive/44witches-wisdom/fading-sound

    Essay accompanies the presenation of works by the feminist art collective Hilma’s Ghost. The author explores the intersection of poetry and digital media in the adaptation of poems by Ariana Reines, Dorothea Lasky, CAConrad, and Lucía Hinojosa Gaxiola into videos. Mąkowska examines how poetry moves beyond the page—transitioning from linguistic materiality and concrete spatial arrangements to dynamic digital constellations that enact the experiences of time and memory. She argues that these "poems-turned-videos" do more than represent movement; they explore the "flows and frictions" between the material, spiritual, and supernatural. By migrating words into digital space, Hilma’s Ghost highlights how poetry functions as a transformative force that can move the reader intellectually, emotionally, and politically.

    keywords: poetry; visuality; movement; Ariana Reines; Dorothea Lasky; CAConrad; Lucía Hinojosa Gaxiolae; video

  2. Sigil Poems

    Hilma’s Ghost
    Hilma’s Ghost, ”Sigil Poems”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/en/archive/44witches-wisdom/sigil-poems

    Hilma’s Ghost, a Brooklyn-based feminist artist collective founded by Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray, presents Sigil Poems—geometric animations translating the work of experimental poets Ariana Reines, Dorothea Lasky, CAConrad, and Lucía Hinojosa Gaxiola into kinetic visual spells. Rooted in collective practice and queer-feminist poetics, each animation transforms written verse into shifting geometric patterns, inhabiting a hybrid space where text, ritual, and motion converge. Named after mystic Hilma af Klint, the collective challenges heteropatriarchal binaries between spirituality and science through luminous, collaborative artmaking.

    keywords: feminist collective; sigil poetry; geometric animation; queer poetics; ritual art; collaborative practice

  3. Katrīna’s Tongue

    Katrīna Neiburga
    Katrīna Neiburga, ”Katrīna’s Tongue”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/en/archive/44witches-wisdom/katerinas-tongue

    Presentation of the art and ideas of acclaimed Latvian artist, Katrīna Neiburga. Her video practice turns the camera toward the overlooked — ordinary lives, buried objects, forgotten rituals — transforming them into charged poetic encounters. Drawing on Latvian folklore, socio-anthropological curiosity, and a deeply personal iconography, her works trace cycles of concealment and return: a body emerging from the earth, childhood secrets hidden under glass, witch hunters’ manuals reclaimed through performance, forest spirits glimpsed at the threshold of the human. Across each piece, vision itself becomes a ritual act — patient and oblique.

    keywords: video installation; socio-anthropology; Latvian folklore; ritual; liminality; micro-worlds, the everyday

Panorama

  1. Beyond the Margins. (Why) Do We Need Minority Heroines?

    Natalia Judzińska
    Natalia Judzińska, ”Beyond the Margins. ”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/en/archive/44witches-wisdom/beyond-the-margins

    The aim of this article is to present and acknowledge the story of Rywka Profitkier, a Jewish student from interwar Vilnius. Before the formal legalization of “ghetto benches” regulations at Stefan Batory University, she took a seat on the side of the lecture hall not assigned to her. This gesture of defiance and resistance against widespread exclusion and oppression did not, however, become recognized in Poland, thus depriving her of the status of a hero. The author intends to restore the rightful place of Jewish people protesting against the national-ethnic segregation introduced by university authorities in the vast majority of Polish academic schools between 1937 and 1938. Furthermore, the article inquires into the conditions of possibility for minoritarian heroes within Polish collective memory.

    keywords: exclusion; antisemitism; interwar; Poland; Vilnius university

  2. The World Is Within Us: Jolanta Brach-Czaina’s "Etos Nowej Sztuki" and "Szczeliny Istnienia" as Manifestos of an Alternative Epistemology

    Jakub Banasiak
    Jakub Banasiak, ”The World Is Within Us”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/pl/archiwum/44-wiedzmy-wiedza/swiat-jest-w-nas.-etos-nowej-sztuki-i-szczeliny-istnienia

    The article engages with the dominant, anti-metaphysical interpretations of Jolanta Brach-Czaina’s philosophy, highlighting the esoteric core of her early thought. The analysis is based on a close reading of two books – Etos nowej sztuki (The Ethos of New Art) and Szczeliny istnienia (Cracks in Existence). The author argues that Cracks in Existence can be seen as the practical embodiment of the theoretical project outlined in Etos nowej sztuki. At its center is the figure of the mystical unity of the human and the world. To illustrate this relationship, the author employs the figure of the “seeker” proposed by Nina Kokkinen, which allows Brach-Czaina to be understood as a seeker of “higher knowledge” of an esoteric nature. This approach enables one to read Cracks in Existence as a project of an alternative epistemic system, in which individual emancipation brings about the transformation of the social whole. The article suggests that Brach-Czaina’s thought can form the basis for a new ethos of the humanities, transcending the dualism of knower and known.

    keywords: Jolanta Brach-Czaina; alternative spiritualities; esotericism; Etos nowej sztuki; Szczeliny istnienia

Perspectives

  1. Witches and Epistemicide. Indigenous Knowledge Between Superstition and Planetary Care

    Anna Markowska
    Anna Markowska, ”Witches and Epistemicide”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/pl/archiwum/44-wiedzmy-wiedza/wiedzmy-i-epistemecide

    The article addresses the systemic suppression of women’s knowledge, beliefs, and identities, a process defined as "epistemecide". The author analyzes the figure of the witch as a symbol of resistance against the dominant patriarchal order of modernity, bridging historical perspectives with contemporary artistic practices. The starting point is a reflection on cognitive duality—the rift between scientific knowledge and the realm of fantasy, which, through feminist "epistemic disobedience," is being revived as a tool for re-enchanting the world and planetary care in the age of the Anthropocene. The text contrasts early modern witch hunts and the accompanying shifts in the status of the image (exemplified by the works of Dosso Dossi and Hans Baldung Grien) with the activities of contemporary artists such as Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Ewa Ciepielewska, and Diana Lelonek. The author argues that the birth of the autonomous image during the Renaissance was linked to the aestheticization of violence against women and the secularization of magic, leading to the loss of agency for female knowledge in favor of male control over nature. The article calls for an inclusive art history that reveals hidden structures of dominance and restores a voice to marginalized traditions

    keywords: witch; epistemecide; feminism; contemporary art; visual culture; post-secularism; Anthropocene; women's history

  2. From the Museum to Artistic Research and Back – Mapping the Field of Contemporary Art

    Andrea Fraser, Krzysztof Pijarski, Katarzyna Bojarska
    Andrea Fraser, Krzysztof Pijarski et al., ”From the Museum to Artistic Research and Back”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/en/archive/44witches-wisdom/from-the-museum-to-artistic-research-and-back

    This is an in-depth dialogue with artist and theorist Andrea Fraser, centered on the evolution of her influential diagrammatic mapping of the contemporary art field. Moving away from the overtly polemical stance of her earlier work, such as L’1%, c’est moi, Fraser discusses her shift toward a relational sociology—deeply rooted in Bourdieusian field theory—to describe the intersections of market, academic, exhibition, activist, and community subfields. The discussion interrogates the "fantasy of autonomy" within artistic and academic institutions, arguing that these spaces are not external to power but are internal sites of entanglement and struggle between cultural and economic capital. Fraser addresses the rise of artistic research, expressing caution regarding the dilution of "research" as a term when subsumed by corporate-academic structures, while simultaneously defending the necessity of rigor in artistic practice. The interview concludes by reflecting on the material realities of artistic labor and the shifting role of public universities in a globalized, corporatized landscape.

    keywords: Andrea Fraser; institutional critique; Pierre Bourdieu; artistic autonomy; artistic research; field theory; art pedagogy.

Snapshots

  1. Witches in the Museum: Dismantling Patriarchy or Backlash?

    Urszula Ulla Chowaniec
    Urszula Ulla Chowaniec, ”Witches in the Museum: Dismantling Patriarchy or Backlash?”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/pl/archiwum/44-wiedzmy-wiedza/czarownice-w-muzeum-rozbrajanie-patriarchatu-czy-backlash

    The review article of the exhibition Häxor at the Historiska museet. The author reflects upon a contemporary memory dispositif in which the figure of the witch operates simultaneously as a tool for deconstructing patriarchy and as a symptom of cultural backlash. The point of departure is Pompe Hedengren’s immersive installation reconstructing the Swedish witch trials of 1668–1676 (“Det stora oväsendet”) through AI-generated imagery. While the exhibition restores faces to nearly three hundred women executed by the state, it also risks aestheticizing violence and reactivating the stereotype of the dangerous, sexualized female body. Drawing on intellectual history (Stuart Clark), feminist reinterpretations of witchcraft (Mona Chollet), Jewish narratives of Lilith (Judith R. Baskin, Judith Plaskow), and contemporary visual culture (including Goddesses, Spirits and Saints at the British Museum), I argue that the witch’s return to museums and cultural discourse should not be read solely as a sign of feminist recovery. Rather, it signals the instability of patriarchal norms and the resurgence of fear toward female knowledge, autonomy, and reproductive agency. The exhibition thus becomes a site of tension between critical remembrance and the aesthetic reproduction of the very structures it seeks to challenge.

    keywords: witches; deconstructing patriarchy; anti-feminist backlash; aestheticization of violence; Pompe Hedengren

  2. The Esoteric Spirit of Socialism

    Jakub Banasiak
    Jakub Banasiak, ”The Esoteric Spirit of Socialism”, Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 44 (2026), https://www.pismowidok.org/pl/archiwum/44-wiedzmy-wiedza/ezoteryczny-duch-socjalizmu

    The review of Joseph Kellner’s The Spirit of Socialism, that is devoted to the phenomenon of alternative spiritualities in late Soviet and post-Soviet Russia of the 1990s. The text discusses the book’s main premises and the conceptual categories introduced by Kellner, and then reconstructs the content of its individual chapters. In the concluding section, the author situates Kellner’s work within the broader context of studies on alternative spiritualities during the transformation period across Central and Eastern Europe.

    keywords: Joseph Kellner; The Spirit of Socialism; USRR; alternative spiritualities