“Circe, how canst thou bid me be gentle to thee, who hast turned my comrades into swine in thy halls, and now keepest me here, and with guileful purpose biddest me go to thy chamber, and go up into thy bed, that when thou hast me stripped thou mayest render me a weakling and unmanned? Nay, verily, it is not I that shall be fain to go up into thy bed, unless thou, goddess, wilt consent to swear a mighty oath that thou wilt not plot against me any fresh mischief to my hurt.” So I spoke, and she straightway swore the oath to do me no harm, as I bade her. But when she had sworn, and made an end of the oath, then I went up to the beautiful bed of Circe.

Odyssey, Book 10.

Like Ulysses, now we are called to travel on a journey in the Agro Pontino region (Lazio, Italy) through scenarios that create connections between present and past. The figure of Circe is an ambivalent portrait: a hostile sorceress who transforms her men into animals but also a welcoming goddess only for those who are able to understand her true identity. She is the perfect symbol of the bi-frontism of hospitality, she can be malignant or benign depending on the representation we decide to attribute to her. Like her, the impervious nature shows us the way to places that do not allow us to be traveled, incomprehensible spaces that are foreign to our eyes.The images are far away from a real condition, becoming without space and time, creating a new imaginary detached from any geographical boundary. They are Archetypal Images, visual representations present in the same way into the unconscious of all men. Through visual analysis, the environment allows to be analyzed in its most intimate details, in all its physical nuances and in the people who populate it. The terrestrial mixes with the supernatural and we become unable to distinguish known atmospheres from those that are unknown to us.Visually, we take a slow walk that allows us to see reality as the representations of an abstract environment, but with objects and subjects that inhabit it and make it concrete and alive.

All images ©Natale Orsini