Torrido

An idea, a memory, can be “torrid”, “warm”, “ardent” ??

We started with this idea in wanting to think of a job that would express, in a non-trivial, the meaning of the word Torrid.

We are in Trentino, at Montecatini (Alumetal) Mori, abandoned factory that since the 30 producing aluminum by meeting the entire national demand and that consumed power supply produced on site via the nearby waters of the river Adige!

“The workers engaged in ovens (called” fornaioli Apocalypse “), were great players in the history of this factory. In the early years of the factory were working in conditions really the limit. [..] Their task next to ovens Fusion consisted of beating the crust with a rod of iron as soon as he lit the lamp that signaled the moment when the bathroom was in need of alumina. The operation was very difficult, the danger of burns and scalds was very high and moreover the temperature of the room in which they worked touched even 60 degrees, with diffusion of fluorine in the air, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. ” (Ref:http://www.ambientetrentino.it/montecatini-alumetal-storie-e-suggestioni/)

Workers were literally burned into practice in the work environment in which they found themselves.

Hence the idea to photograph the memory of those years working, bringing in the furnace room, now abandoned for decades, a former factory worker.

A memory can be torrid?

The worker stops to contemplate the place, the memory brings back the blurred figures of the old workmates. What remains indelible and yet clear and strong is the heat and the sensation of heat.

Here former workmates are only figures now blurred and unclear in the minds of those who remember, while everything else, the fire and the sparks are still alive, ardent, imprinted indelibly in time like that feeling of heat.

A special thanks to: my father, my sister, Valentina, Marco, Riccardo and Borys!! Toolbox, stick and hat are original objects of my grandfather!