TITLE_NAME :
02/21/2026 - 04/04/2026
Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
Hazenstraat 26
1016 SP Amsterdam
In 1667 a 12-year-old girl, Gertrud Svensdotter, was accused of walking on water in Älvdalen, Sweden. This event marked the beginning of the Swedish witch-hunts, a period of mass hysteria and horror in Älvdalen and its neighbouring regions. The exhibition and book Gertrud by artist Maja Daniels uses photography to reconfigure the history and myth of these events, igniting a contemporary dialogue around Gertrud.
Most of the photographs in Gertrud were created by Daniels through interventions in the forest. Utilising the landscape, a cast of characters and seemingly talismanic objects, she has drawn upon a surrealist desire to 're-enchant the world'. In reaction to the present-day view diminishing the value of forests to mere 'resources', her work re-envisions them as once more places of stories, myth and magic. Interspersed with Daniels' photographs are those from the archive of Tenn Lars Persson (1878-1938) whose work she engaged with in her previous book Elf Dalia. As the Series Gertrud unfolds the intertwined sets of photographs disorientate the viewer, unsettling ideas around place and linear time
Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
Hazenstraat 26
1016 SP Amsterdam
In 1667 a 12-year-old girl, Gertrud Svensdotter, was accused of walking on water in Älvdalen, Sweden. This event marked the beginning of the Swedish witch-hunts, a period of mass hysteria and horror in Älvdalen and its neighbouring regions. The exhibition and book Gertrud by artist Maja Daniels uses photography to reconfigure the history and myth of these events, igniting a contemporary dialogue around Gertrud.
Most of the photographs in Gertrud were created by Daniels through interventions in the forest. Utilising the landscape, a cast of characters and seemingly talismanic objects, she has drawn upon a surrealist desire to 're-enchant the world'. In reaction to the present-day view diminishing the value of forests to mere 'resources', her work re-envisions them as once more places of stories, myth and magic. Interspersed with Daniels' photographs are those from the archive of Tenn Lars Persson (1878-1938) whose work she engaged with in her previous book Elf Dalia. As the Series Gertrud unfolds the intertwined sets of photographs disorientate the viewer, unsettling ideas around place and linear time