On display are works dedicated by Elisabetta Susani <\/b>to the V\u00f6lklingen H\u00fctte<\/i>, a colossal steelworks, the only one in the world to be entirely preserved, and the first example of industrial archaeology to be admitted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. <\/i>Founded in 1873 in the historical mining region of the Saar basin, in its heyday, the 1960s, it employed up to 17,000 workers. During the Second World War, it was the scene of extremely dramatic historical events: more than 12,000 Zwangsarbeiter, men, women and children, were subjected to forced labour there, in hellish conditions.
It has been established that at least 60 children lost their lives inside the factory. <\/p>\n
The artist’s visual investigation, carried out in 2017, explores the metamorphosis of this illustrious product of the early machine age, from a place of production and worker exploitation to a popular tourist destination. Questioning the profound significance of this transformation, it takes the form of a kaleidoscopic meditation on the dialectic between memory and representation. <\/p>\n