Giuseppe Ripa has taken studies produced by travelers long ago as the starting point for his beautiful photographs of the ruins of Angkor in Cambodia. The eye rests on a world that preserves its mystery, but seems, at the same time, ready to reveal it to those who know how to wait, observe, and reflect without allowing themselves to be seduced unduly by the wonder that clearly leaves its mark upon their presence. In this truly imaginative world, we have the sensation of seeing not stones, but presences that preserve an intense vitality: the tree roots plunging into temples and merging with them in a splendid metaphor, the fragments of columns and architraves that sometimes obstruct the way and sometimes suggest a new path, and the many faces of Buddha smiling enigmatically from stone bas-reliefs do not seem to belong solely to the past. Giuseppe Ripa (Ragusa, 1962) has been a traveler and photographer since the eighties. His work has an uncommon expressive power and his pictures are deeply evocative of themes such as memory, identity, and human destiny. By the same artist: Anima Mundi (Charta 2004), Tibet (Charta 2006).