FÁBRICA

“One cannot walk through an assembly factory
and not feel that one is in Hell.” - W.H. Auden


'Fábrica', a new book and film by photographer Daniel Blaufuks, is a collection of images composed into an expanded scenery of memory, a walk through the abandoned spaces of one of the largest factories in Europe in an once flourishing industrial region, that never recovered from the loss of the textile market to the Chinese exports.

Blaufuks worked the book and the film (which comes with this edition) as a documental piece, collecting different kinds of memories, crossing old photographs, manuscripts and objects with images of the present state of the building interiors and surroundings.

The result is a reflection not only on the idea of a 'factory' in itself, most generic and abstract, but also about forgetting and abandonment, thus creating a significant memento about labor and the disappearance of the working class in Europe in the last century, which is one of the reasons for the present crisis in the region.

* This title was co-published with Guimarães 2012.


Daniel Blaufuks (b. Lisboa,1963)

Has been working on the relation between photography and
literature, since 'My Tangier', with the writer Paul Bowles. His Collected
Short Stories includes several photographic diptychs in a kind of snapshot
prose, where visual fragments suggest private stories on their way to
becoming public. The relation between public and private has been one of the
constant interrogations in his work. He has been showing widely and works
mainly in photography and video, presenting his work through books,
installations and films. His documentary 'Under Strange Skies' was shown at
the Lincoln Center in New York.
Recent exhibitions include: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena, LisboaPhoto, Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, Elga Wimmer Gallery (New York), Photoespaña (Madrid) where his book "Under Strange Skies" received the award for Best Photography Book of the Year in the International Category in 2007. In the same year he received the BES Photo Award for the work 'Terezín'.

More about the artist: www.danielblaufuks.com

Color, B&W, 2013
DVD + Postcard
included