Ánima is a visual project that proposes an analogy between the tradition of pig slaughter and its parallel with the mythological belief of the Santa Compaña. Through this work, Ruth Montiel Arias (Palmeira, A Coruña, 1977) sets up an encounter between Galician superstition and local customs to construct a new imaginary, one in which folklore can coexist with a form of humanism that is not anthropocentric.
Under the pretext of tradition, certain acts have been preserved that today seem entirely unjustifiable; yet, depending on the country or region, some persist under different temporal veneers shaped by modernity or progress, as can be seen in Galicia.
Ánima thus turns its gaze toward tradition itself and how it legitimizes questionable acts, not only in the eyes of a broad sector of society but also among some of those directly involved, who no longer resign themselves to upholding the age-old command of the slaughter.
Ánima carries within its own narrative a transformative and utopian vocation: this series of photographs unfolds in the passage from the opacity of night to the light of day, from silence to outcry, from the magical to the real, from the invisible to the visible, from the executioner to the executed. It is a visual and emotional journey that shapes Ruth Montiel Arias’s new photobook, oscillating between tradition and belief, where the most primal instincts of human nature emerge, and the possibility of another symbolic and moral legacy, leaving no viewer indifferent as they delve into its pages.
