Paraíso de Coura

Description

Photographer Alfredo Cunha’s book is dedicated to the Paredes de Coura Festival.

“I wrote years ago that the Coura Festival should be prescribed by doctors and deducted from income tax. People had to be sent to Coura even if it took two shoves, because everything at the Festival cures us. I’ve seen many people recover from sadness, but also from grumpiness, from senseless bewilderment, from envy, from ugliness, or from the flu. In Coura, severe ailments are cured, like virginity after puberty, that thing which starts to rot. The wonder here can’t be explained, it is pure lucidity. Just by arriving at Taboão Beach, where the party is set up, everything appears more than Our Lady does. Solar manifestations appear at midnight, truly real stars that walk nearby and that might even come from someone’s chest. Everyone is beautiful and learns to love.” — Valter Hugo Mãe

“The holy land of rock”

“In this dive into the deep spirit of an event we call a music festival, Alfredo Cunha shows us what it is, what exists, what transforms. The untouched natural landscape, the living urban landscape, the pilgrimage, the sound turned into image of the celebration that happens on stage, in the audience, and all around, the faces of those who arrive to take part, of those who offer their work so that it can all happen, of those who have been here forever, hoe on their shoulders, dead brush carried in their arms for the burning, so that the land may germinate and flourish again.” — Mário Lopes

“It’s a village, they call it a festival”

• ISBN: 9789896717834
• Year: 2024
• Publisher: Tinta da China
• Language: Portuguese
• Dimensions: 171 x 205 x 18 mm
• Binding: Softcover
• Pages: 216