Review of the book 'Festivities and Feasts in Galicia', by Xurxo Lobato (2020)

Edition, coordination & photographs: Xurxo Lobato

Texts: Felipe Senén, Omayra Lista

Translations into English: Mark Guscin Linguistic Services

Design: Xosé Díaz

Printer: Sgraf

Fully trilingual book in Galician, Spanish and English. The only untranslated texts are the credits and the titles for the two sections, and in order to quote them in this review I translated them myself. Self-published by photographer Xurxo Lobato, it is a book where the important part is the photographs – the texts from Felipe Senén and Omayra Lista are the complement. The books big format (29,5 by 25 centimetres) allows the enjoyment of the photographs in all of their quality, though the text strikes as small-sized and difficult to read.

• Prologue.  One-page text, the only one written by the photographer dealing with the festivities in Galicia, in which he introduces his idea that the feasts are the adequate moment to watch the people expressing themselves in the freest way.

• Festas (Festivities). 88 pages of photographs along with text by Omayra Lista, reviewing an excellent selection of 39 galician festivities, including the main ones.

• Festivities, landscape and compatriotism in Galicia: invitation and consolidation of the group. Three-page text by Felipe Senén enumerating galician festivities, their layout in the calendar, their religious bond, and the set of the traditions, elements and meals coming along them.

• Entroido (Carnival). 37 pages of photographs that show several galician entroidos, including the most famous ones.

• The eternal Galician Carnival, the origin and originality of masks, the calendar and its rites. Three-page text written by Felipe Senén reviewing the many galician carnival feasts, looking further into their historical origins and their roots in the most basic human nature.

Lobato’s photographs always aim to the people – frequently in groups, capturing the feasts dimension, sometimes individually, aiming at the detail. Always people in the feast, as they are seen in that place and moment, without the help of lighting. Well achieved in general are the photographs of groups, with spectacular examples; amazing also, the portraits of carnivals masked ones; the least achieved are the individual portraits, where sometimes the context is lost.

All in all, a book as much alluring for its photographic interest as for its ethnographic interest.