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Happy Birthday, Marilyn!

I worked on this project under the premise of a fictional commission from a major American magazine. In reality, the idea originated in Daria Addabbo’s meta-reality photonovel Little Boxes, where I, as a character, was sent on assignment to create a visual homage to Marilyn Monroe’s centennial.

Daria invited me to become both protagonist and photographer within the story, asking me to produce a real body of work under this fictional commission. I approached it as if the assignment were real, fully immersing myself in the process while she documented my journey and constructed the novel’s narrative.

Palm Springs was not simply a backdrop, but a deliberate choice deeply tied to Monroe’s mythology. It was here, in the California desert, that Marilyn first moved through the world of old Hollywood glamour while also searching for privacy and escape. Today, she remains immortalized through the controversial Forever Marilyn statue — a permanent emblem of America’s enduring fascination with her image.

I used Palm Springs’ architecture as a metaphor for Marilyn herself: much like her public persona, the city reflects the polished surface of the 1950s American Dream — manicured facades, locked gates, swimming pools and eerily perfect mid-century homes hiding a quieter sense of alienation underneath.

Through hedges, fences, objects and fragments of suburban life, I photographed a world suspended between presence and absence, beauty and loneliness. The harsh, revealing light of the flash became a way to expose the tension between appearance and reality that defines both Monroe’s myth and Palm Springs itself: a beautiful mirage, a deserted city in the desert.

With Happy Birthday, Marilyn!, I am not simply celebrating an icon or documenting a place. I am questioning the way we construct and consume myths — how we project fantasies onto people, cities and images, while quietly trapping them inside carefully curated dreams.

The following body of work appears as the final chapter of Daria Addabbo’s photonovel Little Boxes.


AWARDS:
American Photography 42 
2026 CHOSEN WINNER

^{*All images above are courtesy of Daria Addabbo.}