The Original Sinners
The Original Sinners
The Original Sinners is a photographic project that re-examines female mythical figures, including the Huldra, the Witch, Lilith, Eve, and Agatha of Sicily, through feminist critique and contemporary visual culture. Drawn from folklore and theology, these figures have long functioned as cultural warnings designed to discipline women and instill fear.
At its core, the project proposes that such myths were not innocent stories but social instruments: tools used to police behavior, enforce silence, and pathologize female power. Eve’s desire for knowledge becomes the origin of human downfall; the Huldra’s beauty is framed as deception and threat; Agatha of Sicily’s mutilation punishes her refusal of male control; Lilith’s demonization stems from her insistence on equality. The Witch embodies collective anxiety around female autonomy and rage. Each narrative reinforces the idea that a woman who resists her prescribed role must be condemned. These figures are rendered abject, cast as impure, excessive, or dangerous, their bodies portrayed as seductive, destructive, or uncontrollable.
Yet these myths are not confined to the past. They persist in contemporary culture, resurfacing as the “crazy ex,” the “hysterical woman,” the “femme fatale,” or the “frigid woman.” They inform the ways female anger, sexuality, aging, illness, and bodily difference are judged and stigmatized.
Through photography, The Original Sinners seeks both to expose these enduring mythic structures and to reclaim them, re-situating these figures within a modern context where their power can be redefined rather than feared.