Project
Midway upon the journey of our life/I found myself within a forest dark
The title of these photographic self-portraits, Midway upon the journey of our life/I found myself within a forest dark,/ For the forward pathway had been lost, cite the opening lines of Dante’ Inferno. In this famous verse, the poet strays from the straightforward path, losing his way on a dark and circuitous road. It is precisely its darkness and its convolutions that mark this trail as the way of sin and the passage to hell. The same is true of the primordial Serpent, whose lithe and twisting body betrayed its sinful destiny even before the Fall. After all, a ‘deviant’ is one who turns away, one who strays, one who meanders in sinuous routes. In accord with Dante’s law of contrapasso, moving off the prescribed track will be punished by forcible dislocation: deviants shall be banished. Dante and Satan both were sentenced to exile—driven out from their homelands.
