What we choose to remember—and how—has a profound impact on how we understand ourselves and our world.

In 2019, visual artist Margaux Crump and documentary photographer Jake Eshelman travelled across present-day America to document the locations where records indicate fifty-four individuals were accused of witchcraft and executed by the state. Operating on the premise that places hold memory and that cultural memory can be deeply political, this project investigates how the land and the people in these sites have honored, altered, hidden, perverted, or neglected the memories of these persecutions.

Richly imagined by Western culture, the archetype of the witch occupies the liminal spaces between past and present, real and fantasy, fear and desire. It exists in the periphery—a metonym for danger and difference. Hag, healer, beggar, heretic, seductress; the witch has long haunted our stories. Yet we have not made it a priority to remember those who were condemned and executed. Why is this? Why does the witch thrive as a cultural construct, while individuals executed for witchcraft are largely forgotten or excluded?

By confronting these questions, Echoes of the Witch strives to help bring these memories back into our collective consciousness, contributing to the process of (un)learning, healing, and evolving together.