The project emerges from discussions around the lost narratives of women throughout (religious) history in the West; of why women’s histories and languages, often oral mythologies, craft, agricultural and medicinal practices have not just been lost and altered but destroyed? Over the centuries, the suppressed female creatrix has re-emerged as the Mother of Abominations; Babalon the Great. Often interpreted as courtesan, prostitute, harlot, unmarried mother, the barren wife, the possessed or insane, the crone or witch. Also envisioned in the forms of Kali, Medusa, Mary Magdalene and Eve; the feminine pariah draws power from the transgression of boundaries between perversion and purity; holy and profane. 

‘The Scarlet Women project’ is led and produced by artist Sally Annett and historian of religion Dr Manon Hedenborg White and addresses concepts of the divine and suppressed feminine in her pariah aspects, often unnamed but hidden in plain sight.

The exhibition offers contemporary imaginings and manifestations of the ‘Scarlet Woman’. These take the form of audio-visual installation, photographs, films, prints, paintings, collage, sculpture, text and artefacts as well as a region wide scarlet trail. Based in the ATELIER MELUSINE in the French town of La Trimouille and the nearby Château Mareuil the work presents the Scarlet Women from a female perspective. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of expert lectures, panels and dialogues exploring the iconic feminine form from the Western esoteric, contemporary combined arts and ancient biblical and Talmudic perspective.