Curated by Veronica Santi
OPENING: Friday, February 21 6 PM
“Why should I run? Where would I go? Twenty years I’ve lived in prison. Now I have something to live for. Life has meaning.”
This was the surprising response photographer Clara Vannucci received when she asked a prison inmate and theatre actor why he’d never tried to escape when he had so many opportunities to do so.
For the past 6 years Vannucci has documented the therapeutic use of method acting in Italy’s notorious Volterra Prison, capturing travelling inmate troupes rehearse behind bars and perform to sold-out crowds. Through Vannucci’s lens we witness the powerful transformation these men undergo – trying on roles of alternate characters’ lives and in the process leaving behind the stigma and pain of their past regressions, albeit for a brief moment.