“DAPHNE IS BACK” Art Installation by GUIDO IANNUZZI at Temple of Diana, Rome
25th November 2021 – 27th March 2022
The artwork is a sort of conceptual sequel to the traditional myth of Daphne and Apollo that is being reimagined and updated.
In it is captured the moment in which Daphne returns to being free and no longer imprisoned in the laurel plant in which she had transformed herself to escape violence.
The goal of the artwork is to affirm that mimesis, hiding or fleeing can only be temporary, emergency solutions against violence, while it is absolutely necessary to free Daphne and allow her to be herself by showing her own corporeality and thought without risk of suffering physical or psychological violence.
This applies not only to Daphne and women, but to anyone forced to hide their nature and their ideas in order to escape violence or marginalisation.
The artwork captures exactly the moment where the two lead and gold arrows, which had initiated the classical myth, meet, making the laurel plant that had protected, by imprisoning her, the essence of Daphne, dematerialise. The nymph disappears from the sight of the bystanders, having returned to her full freedom, only the bay leaves remain for a few moments, floating in the air as the only reverberation and echo of the previous state assumed by Daphne.
Daphne is back, back to being free.
The installation is located inside the Tempietto di Diana of Villa Borghese which is located a few hundred metres from the Bernini statue, kept inside the Borghese Gallery, which represents the classical myth from which “Daphne is back” takes its origin.