Laetitia El Hakim

In mud, rust, and blood

from domestica (f.) | Maga

We are introduced to witches as children as the evil antagonist in stories we grew up loving. As we mature, so should our understanding of these complex women, through the dissection of the good, the bad, and every shade in between. The witch gets liberated from our childhood imaginaries and becomes a living figure in our lived history. She is not a bedtime story, she is history. She no longer exists in the bounds of a writer’s narrative but a human being who has lived, breathed, and ultimately, in most cases, was killed.

Thought to be maleficent, most were healers or simply women who did not abide by the social structure that was in place at the time; WITCH. Today,Women are no longer burned at the stake but those who express some kind of independence or stray from the road they’re expected to take are more often than not viewed as witches, in the broad sense of the word. The witch thus becomes a symbol of independence and ownership over one’s own body, ideas, and voice.

More than four centuries separate us from the era of witch trials. In this part of the world, these trials were non-existent but they have concretized into a reality that is permanent, perpetual, and a tool of domestication.

In mud, rust, and blood draws a parallelism between the witch trials and contemporary femicide. It aims to be a facilitator of conversations around a topic that we often assume happens elsewhere, to someone else, or in a previous time.

The work delves into the tale of the witch; a tale that was formed through fear, a tale that had so far erased the healer, the midwife, the widow, and the crone to only present the villain. It leans on borrowed recipes, stemming from my mother’s cookbook, used as a trigger for reflection attempting to dismantle the limits; guidelines and rules set by instructions and ingredients. It is developed over three parts: the magical, the trials, and the sacrifice, presenting a cycle of violence that is long overdue we break.

In mud we are born;

In rust we perish;

In blood we grow

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