Ghost Bitch: Arise from the Gallows Movie Trailer, 2016
Single Channel Video, runtime: 4:23 minutes

Rebecca Goyette’s alter ego Ghost Bitch is an apparition of her direct ancestor and namesake, Rebecca Nurse, an accused Puritan hanged in the Salem Witch Trials. Witch by day and dominatrix by night, Ghost Bitch connects America's barbaric beginnings with her own personal trauma of a childhood spent in small town New England, culminating in a satirical lampooning of contemporary political turmoil.

In Ghost Bitch: Arise from the Gallows, the Ghost Bitch character engages in erotic historical role-play. Shot on location in Salem and in collaboration with modern-day witches, Goyette inhabits the archaic stereotype of an accused witch; re-performing Salem Witch hanging scenes by tourists day and offering services as a Ghost Bitch dominatrix by night. Ghost Bitch U.S.A. is another mythic fable, again following our heroine as she and her supporting cast of characters rectify paternal betrayal, alluding to modern politics and personal trauma, possibly ensnaring a certain Presidential candidate with purportedly “small hands.”

 In conjunction with the films, the artist has created drawings, sculptures, and paintings inspired by personal and ancestral psychological history, pulling directly from her films. The magical objects, costume pieces and fragments from both Ghost Bitch films are presented on a monumental, fully-functioning altar that can be activated  in participatory rituals.