On my walks through the woods, I came across a spot: 42°5’29.76” N 12°53’4.56” E, a small space no larger than 50 m². There, sunlight filters timidly through the trees for just a few hours a day. The stream, Fosso Maricella, is barely a trickle of water, its hypnotic sound accompanying the stillness of the place. In this tiny corner, scales take on a whole new dimension: the small contains a universe, and time seems to follow a different rhythm.
The photographs seek out these water nymphs, their prophecies and their surroundings. In them, the sun’s reflections on the moving water, captured using long exposures, reveal lines and patterns that I imagine to be manifestations of the nymphs or their messages. This quest becomes an attempt to make the invisible visible, to discover in the ephemeral the traces of the eternal.
This link between water and the sky was exploited by the Romans in the construction of temples, villas and cities. Through ponds and watercourses, they symbolised the idea of bringing ‘heaven to earth’.
This journey, between heaven and earth, is the same journey undertaken by the Sibyls between Apollo and the underworld of the serpent Python. It is also the journey of the iatromancers, the European and American shamans, and the tantric priestesses. It is the journey of death before death. All of them can undertake the journey, recount it afterwards and help others to make the same journey.
The QR code invites walkers to read this text and view the works from this stage of the journey.