Ghost tour the Hague - Catharina le Chasseur
On Sunday November 10th I hosted a guided ghost tour through The Hague, showing three different places in the centre where Catharina le Chasseur lived and is said to dwell. She is known as the ghost of the Hague, and for years I have been looking for information about her:
This project traces the spectral footsteps of Catharina le Chasseur, a woman whose ghost is said to haunt the historic heart of The Hague. Blending photography, archival research, and embodied exploration, it is both a personal journey and a public storytelling effort aimed at uncovering hidden layers of the city, and of how we remember women who organised life a bit different from the rest.
Catharina’s story exists in fragments: whispers of a woman once accused, exiled, and perhaps betrayed, whose restless spirit is still said to wander alleyways and historic buildings. I visited the sites where she is believed to dwell, guided by old maps, archaeological records, and legends preserved in local lore. I searched for traces and photographed the remains, and perhaps even her spirit.
Through this project, I explore what Catharina’s lingering presence tells us about how women in our history are remembered, and forgotten in urban memory. Her story, like that of many women in history, has been distorted by myth, shaped by fear, and often reduced to moral caution. Yet her spectral figure invites us to look closer, to reconsider her not as a villain or victim, but as a person caught in the complicated politics of gender, place, and power.
Now, I am organizing a guided walk through The Hague, inviting others to join me in retracing Catharina's possible routes. This walk is not just a ghost tour, it is a poetic investigation using historical documents, maps, and photography to reimagine Catharina’s story and presence. Participants will encounter not only physical landmarks but also the emotional and cultural echoes that linger in these spaces.
Together, we will ask: What does it mean to search for someone history tried to erase? And how can a haunted past help us reimagine our present?
