Copacabana Palace

PublisherEdition Lammerhuber
PhotographerPeter Bauza left his native Germany after graduating in international commerce and worked many years as manager for an international company in several Latin American countries. His passion for photography soon grew strongly and Bauza began to develop his
Date of Publication08/2016
Location of PublicationBaden, Austria
PrizeFinalist in Single Author / Photojournalism_SA
Entry Description

Copacabana Palace is the story of an abandoned housing project in Rio de Janeiro, named after the famous luxury hotel on the even more famous Copacabana Beach. Peter Bauza lived with the residents of Copacabana Palace for eight months and has created a unique photo document. „Paradise is here, hell is here, madness is here, passion is here.“ This statement of Francis Himes about Rio became Peter Bauza‘s motto. The six blocks of this uncompleted housing compound have become a place of shelter and hope for some 300 ‚sem teto, sem terra’ families‘ without roof or land’. His superbly perceptive pictures form a highly poetic tale of their lives, their everyday moments of joy and sadness, their needs and illusions, but also of beauty and strength and co-existence. Copacabana Palace is a typical example of the fight for survival of millions of Brazilians in similar situations while the government goes through one of its most severe political and economic crises.