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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 the renowned Brazilian composer and singer Francis Himes about Rio became Peter Bauza’s motto when he photographed the people of Copacabana Palace. 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". Peter Bauza’s 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 the co-existence community that has emerged in these precarious circumstances.

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, yet spends billions on infrastructure for world sports events.