Holy Week in Antigua Guatemala: A City in Prayer

• Prize
  Curator Selection
• Photographer
  Bart Rubik, Poland
• Date of Photograph
  2025
• Category
  Americas
• Website
  https://bartrubik.com/
• Instagram
  https://www.instagram.com/bartrubik_photography

Easter celebrations in Antigua Guatemala date back nearly 500 years. Colonial streets fill with hours-long processions where participants carry heavy wooden platforms with statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Religious brotherhoods known as hermandades lead the ceremonies, while purple-robed penitents, called cucuruchos, lead the way over alfombras, intricate carpets of dyed sawdust and flowers. The air fills with copal incense, evoking prayer and purification. For the people of the city, it is a time of reflection, a shared experience of faith, and a living expression of cultural identity.

Polish documentary photographer exploring how faith is expressed through beliefs, ceremonies, rituals, and religious festivals across cultures. He develops the long-term project Stories of the Sacred, documenting humanity’s relationship with spirituality and transcendence.
His work also examines broader social issues, focusing on how communities navigate tradition, identity, labor, and change, often in remote environments.