Exceptional Corpus with the Giants of Vilanova

On the Sunday after Corpus Christi we usually go to Sitges to admire the artistically decorated streets, but this year we could enjoy elaborated flower carpets (catifes de flors) at home. The accounts of Vilanova’s Sant Antoni Abat church reveal that, in 1709, the parish paid for a new coat of paint for the giants, in order to make them look nice for the corpus procession. To celebrate the 300th anniversary of that first written record of our local giants, the geganters of our days had decided to recreate the event.



In the morning, associations related to popular culture made pictures of the giants in the squares of historic Vilanova. The huge one on the plaça de les Cols was designed by Òscar Estruga – the artist behind the emblematic sculpture Pasífae on the beach Ribes Roges – and stood out for its warm colours. However, like all the others it was destroyed in the early evening when the tall Gegant de la Porra and his equally tall wife - Geganta Grossa - followed by la Boja – the town’s biggest mulassa – performed a dances on top of it.

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This summer, la Sala will house a retrospective Òscar Estruga exhibition and, early August, during Vilanova’s festa major, old giants from all around Catalonia will come here for the baixada dels gegants.

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Technorati tags: Catalonia, Festa Major, Vilanova