Escape (2009) is inspired by Miguel de Cervantes’s literary work “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha”. The photographic series is about a housewife who is reading Cervantes’s novel and becomes so involved that she is almost completely drawn into it. So, she spends her days catapulted into the adventures of Don Quixote, abandoning herself, just as he did, to her own imagination.

In this case too, as with In Wonderland, The Princess and the Pea and subsequently with Bar Sport OffandDante’s Inferno, this work was produced thanks to the collaboration of the inhabitants of the photographer’s home town of Tolfa, located in the countryside known as the ‘Maremma Laziale’, north of Rome. The inhabitants participated in the development of the image, contributing to the construction of the scene, as well as with clothing, pets, and finally by interpreting the characters.

Valentina Vannicola