Daughters of Magic

Mihaela Minca says she is the most powerful witch in Romania. The profession has a long tradition in her family. Mihaela's mother and grandmother were witches. Together with her daughters and daughter-in-law, she runs a thriving business: The witches offer everything from love spells to curses. They receive requests from all over the world via the Internet. But magic and fortune-telling are not just business. For this Roma family and their close-knit community in south-eastern Europe, magic and mysticism are a way of life. The craft of witchcraft is seen as an expression of female strength in an everyday culture dominated by men. Johanna-Maria Fritz travelled to Romania several times and accompanied Mihaela Minca and her family for over a year and a half for the 'Daughters of Magic' project. The photographs were shown in an exhibition at the Akademie der Künste Berlin in 2020 and published as a book by Hartmann Books in the same year.