Lucia Ganieva

Factory

A series of photographs made in a textile factory in the town of Ivanovo, some 275 km north-east of Moscow.

The town was called the ‘town of brides’ because the population counted almost only women, working in the textile branch.

Before, already during the regime of the czars, this town was the centre of textile industry in Russia.

There were a lot of different plants where all kinds of fabrics were manufactured, mostly based on cotton and linen.

In the course of time, mostly due to competition of low labour cost countries, such as China, they almost all had to close down.

At the present time only a handful of them are still active, but it is to be expected that they all will not last very long anymore.

The factory where I made my series, the ‘Kombinat named after F. N. Samoilova’ was a very big plant, where the complete range of working up fabrics was performed, but now it has restricted its activities and only bleaching and printing of the fabrics is remained as activity.

My intention was to make a portrait of the factory, by combining its interior, the fabrics they work up and the women doing the work.

The fabrics portrayed come from different collections, all over the years, old and new, the same as the interior images, where old and newer equipment is shown, and the workers, who are women of different ages.

Lucia Ganieva