The sleepers

 

 

Sicily. Summer.

It's time to retire from the summer heat.

From the blazing, midday sun.

It’s the time for refreshment in the Mediterranean maquis close to the song of cicadas.

The body surrenders to rest, to the tender sun filtered by the trees.

 

An ancient and vital rite replaces the dives, the saltiness, the carefree adventures.

 

Then sleep grants a pause. An overcoming. It's time to regenerate and benefit from this waiting when everything stops and peace reigns over everything.

Beyond an imaginary threshold a spell occurs and the images of the bodies between the real and the spell give life to a poetic world.

 

In such a small dimension, a pine forest - an island within an island - a journey of the gaze begins which crumbles the concrete and gives space to the imaginary: the dream settles in.

 

Everything takes place in there.

 

Outside there are the rocks, the waves, the joyful cries of bathers, the jokes and the walks that seem to have vanished in this place; there is only the breath of air among the pines.

 

Donata Zanotti is a portrait and documentary photographer.

 

A solitary traveller with an itinerary between knowledge and love, for years she has been conducting a personal research on summer rituals in the iconic places of the Italian Riviera, but not only. With her images she breaks complex realities into small fragments of them.

Her photographs are present in Italian and foreign private collections.