The Hymn of Ophelia
Ophelia, the eternal symbol of innocence crushed and sorrow turned into hymn, is the starting point of this photographic work.
Ophelia, the eternal symbol of innocence crushed and sorrow turned into hymn, is the starting point of this photographic work.
Through Shakespeare’s narrative, where even her death remains unseen, as well as the lyrical readings of poets such as Arthur Rimbaud, a visual representation was created of the moment when Ophelia’s body, light as the flowers she gathered, floats between life and death.
Ophelia hovers at the threshold of existence, just before she surrenders to the water and to oblivion. Her image is not merely a figure fading away, but a hymn to everything that perishes with her: innocence, the female voice that was never heard, and tenderness that cannot survive in the violent world of power. The work engages with the ideas of transience, loss, and the ineffable beauty of the final moment, when existence, yielding to non-being, speaks more powerfully than ever.
O p h e l i a – William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“Her clothes spread wide and, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up; which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and indued unto that element; but long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death.”
O p h e l i a – Arthur Rimbaud (Ioanna Avramidou)
On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping
White Ophelia floats like a great lily;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils…
In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort. O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow!
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river!
It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.
White Ophelia floats like a great lily;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils…
In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort. O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow!
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river!
It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.
