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Happy Birthday, Marylin!

Daria Addabbo, a documentary photographer, invited me to take part in her meta-reality novel Sotto il Sole, making me the protagonist and asking me to create a real photographic project under a fictional commission — a visual homage to Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday in Palm Springs. What began as fiction became a true exploration of myth, image, and illusion.

The following is the body of work I produced, which appears at the end of her book Sotto il Sole.

I used Palm Springs’ mid-century architecture as a metaphor for Marilyn herself: gleaming on the surface with manicured facades and locked gates, yet quietly alienated underneath. Through interiors, gardens, and fences, I captured the tension between appearance and reality — the perfect mirage concealing complexity and loneliness. Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds echoed in my mind, reflecting suburban conformity and the contrast between Monroe’s myth and her hidden struggles.

With Happy Birthday, Marilyn!, I am not simply celebrating a myth or documenting a place. I am reconstructing and paying homage to the complexity of Marilyn’s character and her inner struggles through objects, the city’s architecture, the tension between presence and absence, the sharp cuts of the framing, and the harsh, revealing light of the flash.