Silenced

In the Borghese Gallery in Rome, Bernini's Rape of Persephone has stood for four centuries, celebrated as one of the greatest technical achievements in the history of Western sculpture. I stood in front of it with a 35mm camera and found myself looking not at the spectacle of the craft, but at the details that told a different story — her face caught in the precise moment between shock and understanding, the hand gripping her thigh with fingers that press into stone as though the marble never hardened, and at the base of the sculpture, the dog, loyal witness to the wrong person, looking on.

Silenced is a triptych of analog film photographs, each one an intimate detail drawn from that encounter, printed as archival giclée and held together within a single antique Roman frame that I restored myself. The oxidized metal skeleton is kept intact, its patina undisturbed, but backed now with black velvet that surfaces quietly through the gaps in the metalwork. The original oval convex glass remains; the frame has been given new life without being asked to forget what it is — and in that way, it mirrors the work exactly.

Bernini's mastery has never been in question, and Silenced doesn't dispute it. It simply shifts the gaze away from the spectacle of the craft and toward the experience of the figure at the center of it, staying there long enough for the discomfort to settle in.

This piece is part of Bright Ruin, my series of over 45 unique works shot entirely on analog film over the course of 10 days in Rome, and first exhibited at Gallery ATARAH in September 2025. Learn more about the series here - Bright Ruin by Atarah Atkinson