In the last pages of her 2010 book, The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of Their Dreams, Alessandra Sanguinetti promised “This is not the end”.
A decade later, the photographer takes up the story again in her new book, The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Illusion of an Everlasting Summer.
Together, the books follow two cousins in the Argentine countryside from 1998, when they were wildly imaginative children, to adolescence and motherhood in 2012.
The work is a poignant exploration of the beauty and awkwardness of adolescence into early adulthood. As the series progresses, we see the element of fantasy dim as the girls are faced with a harsher, more adult reality. According to the photographer: “I have attempted to interpret the ending of their childhood by entering their imaginary spaces. The time when their dreams, fantasies, and fears would fuse seamlessly with real day-to-day life are ending, and the photographs I have made intend to crystallize this rapidly disappearing very personal and free space.”
Though the passage of time is one of the most palpable tensions in these photographs, this book deepens Sanguinetti’s exploration of the timeless, universal language of female intimacy and friendship.
