"José Manuel Navia doesn't take photographs of our familiar world; instead he shows us what is left behind when we have shed it. His is the gaze of those who cannot go back. Nothing is their lot and nothing can they claim; yet they long to return to the places where they once lived, once might have known happiness. They don't look at things in order to possess; they merely ask to see them one last time… This is an untainted gaze, the way the dead would look at the world if they could return; a gaze that yearns to turn into pure light."

Gustavo Martín Garzo, from the Preface.

Navia (Madrid, 1957) Photographer and philosophy graduate. His photojournalism as a reporter has gradually moved towards a more personal and deliberated photography, always working in colour, always within the field of the documentary. His images, coming from profoundly Iberian sources, explore territories and peoples linked to their origins and culture in one form or another. He is fascinated by photography's signifying power and its relationship to literature. He has been a member of the Vu agency, Paris since 1992.