David Simpson - Courir

Horse racing, chicken chasing and greased pole climbing: inside rural Louisiana's Mardi Gras celebrations where mockery, chaos and joy intertwine

Every year, as Ash Wednesday approaches, rural communities in southwest Louisiana are set into motion by the Courirs de Mardi Gras--ritualized runs in which masked and costumed participants travel from house to house, singing, dancing and begging for ingredients to prepare a communal gumbo. In Courir, photographer David Simpson offers a rare, intimate immersion into this living folk tradition, the result of more than 30 years of photographic engagement with Cajun and Creole Mardi Gras celebrations. Both ethnographic and poetic, it stands as a visual homage to a tradition rarely seen from within. Simpson's photobook preserves a fragile cultural inheritance while honoring its vitality, offering readers a vivid encounter with a ritual that continues to evolve and bind communities together through shared performance and celebration.