Gertrud by Maja Daniels

What does it mean to be accused of walking on water, to be marked by the currents of myth and hysteria? 

In 1667, a 12-year-old girl, Gertrud Svensdotter, was said to have done just that in Älvdalen, Sweden. This moment, as strange and fragile as a dream, became the spark that ignited the Swedish witch hunts—a time of unbearable horror that swept through Älvdalen and the surrounding lands. *Gertrud*, the book by artist Maja Daniels, brings this myth into the light once more, using photography to weave past and present, history and imagination, into an intricate dialogue about Gertrud and the shadows she left behind.

Daniels, whose own roots trace back to Älvdalen, grew up with these stories whispered by her grandmother, stories of trials and torments, of "Det stora oväsendet"—the great noise—that claimed over 300 lives in the space of eight long, haunted years. These events, so distant and yet still raw, remain a deep scar on the landscape of Sweden, one of its darkest, most unfathomable periods.

The images in Gertrud are not simple documents but echoes, born from Daniels’ intimate wanderings through the forest. Her photographs—fragmented, talismanic, half-lost—transform the woods into spaces of memory, magic, and myth. The trees and earth seem to remember, carrying the weight of ancient stories. Alongside her images, those of Tenn Lars Persson (1878-1938) emerge from the archive like ghosts, weaving through time and space, distorting the borders between then and now. As the pages unfold, these photographs, intertwined, blur the lines between history and dream, leaving the viewer adrift, lost in a landscape where time no longer moves in straight lines.