The janara nurtures, protects and avenges.
She speaks the language of plants, knows and guards the secrets of the
land and its people.

Her knowledge of nature gives her the power to give life and to bring death.
Witch and janara are names that are inflicted, not chosen.
They are the social mark of condemnation and exclusion.
But they also are the symbol of a presence rooted in history, not in fantasy;
the living example of the patriarchal war against female independence and
self-determination.

The figure of the witch, haunted, extirpated, condemned by centuries of
violence and social exclusion, bears the mark of the power relations that
have historically been perpetrated on women's bodies, but still evokes the
courage to reclaim practices of resistance and liberation.

The Hex artist residency aims to celebrate and investigate the figure of the
janara, witch of the Benevento area and guardian of ancient knowledge,
who permeated the experience of the agro-pastoral society of the province,
fulfilling a social role, which on the one hand recognized her as a curator,
and on the other ostracized her, making her the scapegoat for all those
evils of life too painful to be explained or accepted rationally.