“… 20 ANOS DEPOIS” de Pereira Lopes

About

Black and white photography exhibition by avintense photographer Pereira Lopes, dedicated to the Pejão Mines, in Castelo de Paiva. For 108 years it was the most important coal mining operation in the Douro Coal Basin, until it closed at the end of 1994, leaving hundreds of people without work in an area that depended on the mine. Twenty years after the closure, the photographer devoted himself to recovering stories and memories of the so-called "Pejão family". From the project, with ten months of preparation and as many months of field work, came the photographs and the book "... 20 Years Later". The exhibition was inaugurated in Castelo de Paiva in 2015 and has already been to Aveiro, Leiria, Azores, Corunna and Florianópolis, among other places. There are 20 portraits of miners and people connected to the mine, such as "Bloca", "Deolinda do Aido" or "Manel 29". The faces speak of the hardship of work more than 400 meters deep and of mining heritage as collective memory. It is directed at the general public.