Hardcover, edition of 100 copies containing 60 black and white photographs. Photography by Maksymilian Rigamonti, citizens of Września.
Text by Magdalena Rigamonti. Design by Honza Zamojski.

Four women were burned here. First two. They were to ride a black rooster and use it to fly to cemetery parties. Another two right after. Earlier they were covered with tar. The crowds appeared at the market square in Września. The stake was burning here in 1720.

In October and November 2020, at the peak of coronavirus cases, protests in defence of women's rights continued throughout Poland. The crowds came to the market square in Września.

Burned, destroyed and humiliated over the years. Witches, crones, women. Fighting for independence and freedom. Fighting for themselves alone. Lonely. "The Stake" is a photographic and literary story about women. It was made during the pandemic in 2020, just three hundred years after one of the last stakes in Europe was burning in a small town in Great Poland. The book, like  Hammer of Witches (1487)- the Catholic treatise on witchcraft, consists of three chapters and tells about women who defy categorisation and stereotypes. The first part proves that magic does exist - in this chapter, Maksymilian Rigamonti reaches for fear and terror symbols linking modernity with 13th-century history. The second part describes the forms of practicing magic - Magdalena Rigamonti gives the floor to four women who have defied the patterns and are constantly fighting for themselves. The third chapter reveals the methods of detecting, judging and getting rid of witches - here the citizens took matters into their own hands, went out to the market square and manifested their support for women. - Does that event somehow still resonate in the city space? Are there today, in little Września, women who go against the tide, dare to have their own opinion, separate from the majority, and are willing to express it out loud? The Rigamonti want not only to  remind us of our past sins, but also to give voice to contemporary Polish women- writes Karol Szymkowiak, curator of "The Stake" book and the entire Września Collection.

"The Stake" following "Echo"- award-winning piece for the best photographic book in the world in the Pictures of the Year International competition - is another joint publication of the Rigamonti writing and photography duo. The authors invited Ewa Meissner, a photo editor, and Honza Zamojski, a designer of artistic books, to cooperate. It resulted with the creation of a complete and universal publication about the centuries-long fight for and against women.

Order here.

Pages: 152
Place: Warsaw
Year: 2021
Publisher: Self published
Size: 19 x 25 cm (approx.)

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