Myths are open to interpretations but refuse to be fully locked down. Photographs function in a similar way. The core of what is expressed in an image lies somewhere in the unseen or in its silent associations.
In 1667 the 12-year-old girl Gertrud Svensdotter was accused of walking on water in Älvdalen, Sweden. The event marked the beginning of the Swedish witch trials, a period of mass hysteria and horror. Maja Daniel's On the Silence of Myth, on view at Galleri Format, brings the history and myth surrounding these events into the present day and allows the world in which Gertrud lived to be resurrected on new terms, where the outcome of the events is not yet settled.
On the Silence of Myth will create new myths that draw on elements of already existing ones; a strategy employed to expand on and challenge certain historical constructs and to show how a visual narrative can recreate and change our relationship with the past, present, and future.
Maja Daniels (b. 1985) is a Swedish photography-based artist. Her work is influenced by her studies in sociology and can be described as a multi-layered academic and artistic practice that includes sociological methodology, sound, moving image and archive materials, aiming to further explore each medium’s narrative and performative functions.
