On a trip around Romania, Harley Weir photographs today’s witches
For a new book, ‘Witch’, Harley Weir and fashion designer Dilara Findikoglu take a trip across Romania
What does it mean to be a witch today? Photographer Harley Weir and fashion designer Dilara Findikoglu considered the question on a journey through Romania, travelling across eight cities and villages in five days in a bid to document real witches.
‘The witch became a name for the woman who could not, or would not, be controlled’
Photographer Harley Weir
‘We photographed real witches, and powerful women on a journey across Romania,’ says Weir. ‘For centuries, the witch has been used as a symbol of evil. But maybe she was never scary because she was evil, maybe she was scary because she was free. Across history, women who were outspoken, independent, sexual, knowledgeable, or simply unwilling to conform have been treated as dangerous. The witch became a name for the woman who could not, or would not, be controlled.’
Weir photographed women in traditional dress alongside those dressed in Findikoglu’s designs, in a linking of the traditional and contemporary. ‘The body as a place of rebellion, desire and self-expression,’ adds Weir. ‘The clothes feel protective and provocative at once, allowing these women to inhabit the witch not as a caricature of evil, but as a symbol of power, freedom and refusal.’
For Findikoglu, the project has been a chance to rediscover her own Eastern European roots, and enjoy the beauty of the Romanian landscape. ‘The word witch has long been used to marginalise a form of power and wisdom associated with women,’ she says. ‘By linking the feminine relationship with nature and the unseen, society transformed what it could not understand into something to fear. For centuries, patriarchal thinking has placed logic, reason and control above intuition, emotion and instinct. Yet these are equally valuable forms of knowledge, each essential to our understanding of existence.’
The resulting works are the subject of a new photo book published by IDEA. ‘Through this book, we wanted to explore and celebrate the beauty of this often overlooked wisdom,’ says Findikoglu. ‘To question the boundaries between the rational and the unseen, and to recognise the power that exists beyond what we have been taught to understand as truth.’
Harley Weir & Dilara Findikoglu’s Witch is released on 31 October 2026, published by IDEA
