TIERRA MÁGICA

As Light Motiv’s third book about carnivals, TIERRA MÁGICA tackles rituals and masquerades of northwestern Spain. Every year, sounds of bells come out of the mist surrounding villages to announce the end of winter. Cries and distant music can also be heard. As one’s gets closer, one’s begins to distinguish walking trees, fantastic birds and more disturbing figures. Those processions seem to come from far away, from the depths of time, from under the earth. French photographer Yannick Cormier transcribes the amazement that seizes us while facing those frightening and attractive characters.

The book rhythm alternates black and white photographs, made with a medium format film camera, of misty landscapes and sudden appearances. Those masquerades have survived centuries and wars with small shifts. They may be seen as the resurgence of an animist world preceding the Christian expansion. One could almost say that those costumes embody a pagan world, in opposition to the divine sky: all wild nuances are reinterpreted in the animal, vegetal or chimerical ornaments.

In the end, this is a parade of sensations that oscillate between dream and nightmare, with Yannick Cormier opening the ball.

The black and white analog photographs go along with a beautiful text written by Candice Moise, a French scholar specialised in the study of masks.

The book is also available with a limited signed print on sale here..