Malleus Maleficarum
Virginie REBETEZ
In the eleventh edition of the Enquête photographique fribourgeoise, Virginie Rebetez takes a look at the mediums and healers who are widespread in this Catholic region of Western Switzerland and deeply rooted in the culture; she examines their practice by placing them in a broader historical context of witch-hunting.
By exploring the space between the visible and the invisible, Malleus Maleficarum imagines and rethinks history from a new angle. The past bursts in through the character of Claude Bergier, accused of witchcraft and burnt at the stake in Fribourg in 1628. Rebetez brings Bergier back by organising mediumistic seances, building bridges between people and places separated by time and space.
Malleus Maleficarum is a personal and intimate project, a reflection on life and an acceptance of the unknown, in which the language of photography is pushed to its very limits.