Valentina Vannicola’s photographic research is focused on transposing a work of literature to a picture. While working on the text, she sets out a sort of tableaux vivant. The characters of her shoots are non-professional actors from Tolfa, her hometown (a small town north of Rome), who act in the natural, country setting she has chosen to represent her imaginary world.
In Dante’s Inferno (2011), which consists of 15 photographs and a preparatory sketch, Vannicola, inspired by the Alighieri masterpiece, unites her disposition towards her native land, with the active participation of its local community who, come rain or shine, lend their presence to some of her most extravagant tableaux, wearing woolen long johns as if depicting archetypal inhabitants of the countryside, and sometimes climbing on trees or deep in water.
Vannicola has set up surrealistic scenes recreating Dante’s journey through the strata of hell. While the outcome could easily have been predictable and illustrative, the mise-en-scène of landscape, objects, and untrained actors suggests rituals both playful and tragic.
Links: http://www.onoffpicture.com/agency/photographers/valentina-vannicola
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