Devils & Angels Ritual Feasts in Europe

Devils & Angels: Ritual Feasts in Europe is Friso Spoelstra's photographic survey of traditional folk festivals across sixteen European countries, made over roughly a decade of travel.

The book gathers ritual feasts and folk traditions from across the continent, reading past the politics of Brussels toward what the publisher frames as Europe's intangible cultural heritage: local customs that persist even as the union around them grows. Spoelstra's images set the distinct character of each tradition alongside the surprising overlaps between them. The work was shown at debatruimte GEMAK in The Hague in November 2014, at the Fotografijas Muzejs in Riga in June 2015, and at Museum Twentse Welle in Enschede in 2016.

Spoelstra is a Dutch documentary and portrait photographer whose other projects include the book Boat People of Amsterdam and the series Sunneklaas Ameland, alongside a recurring photo column, Dutch Leisure, for the newspaper Trouw and assignment work in India, Dubai, and Mali.