Det stora oväsendet - Triennalen Västernorrland: Laia Abril!

Lördagen den 14 juni invigs en installation av Laia Abril på Härnösands Konsthall. Här kommer en kort intervju med konstnären!

-Hello Laia! You are one of 33 artists in the second version of Triennalen Västernorrland – The Great Noise! Can you tell us what your installation is about?

In January 2022, the Catalan Parliament formally acknowledged the persecution of over 1,000 individuals—mostly women—executed for witchcraft between the 15th and 18th centuries. Of these, around 800 have been identified by name by historian Pau Castell. These women, often marginalized—widows, healers, or individuals with mental illnesses—were scapegoated during periods of social unrest. Their persecution was part of a broader strategy to suppress women’s knowledge, sexuality, and reproductive autonomy during the dawn of modernity.

In response to this reckoning, the image-audio installation “Plou i fa sol” confronts an invisible visual history through an act of mourning and historical repair. Composed of 800 AI-generated portraits, the piece does not seek to reconstruct the likenesses of the executed women, but rather constructs a memorial imaginary—giving form to those who disappeared before photography could capture their existence, and who have been historically erased. Unlike traditional photographs, these images are not the product of a witness, nor are they anchored to a specific time, body, or place—they exist in a space removed from direct experience, challenging the conventional notions of evidence and testimony, and echoing the failure to preserve identity in historical archives.

-How would you describe your artistry?

I am an research-based artist working across photography, text, video, and sound, with a focus on biopolitics and gender issues. My work is rooted in a politically engaged, process-driven methodology that employs strategies of forensic aesthetics and counter-narratives, interrogating dominant histories and the politics of representation.