A collective project for the construction of memory, archives and community.
Smoke archivers is a group of women who were formerly “cigarreras” (cigarette makers) and current Tabakalera employees. They have been holding regular meetings since September 2016, and among their goals was the building of a community archive on the histories of Tabacalera and Tabakalera. The first version of that archive is already available for consultation in the Tabakalera digital archive, Makusi.
In this process, they reflect on the ways in which the narratives are normally constructed and bring together material that does not appear in the so-called official archives. This includes photographs, documents, videos, audio recordings and objects which have been generated during the work process, but which have mostly been kept for years by the ex-workers of the factory. It therefore involves the publishing of a collection of domestic archives, which were not originally intended to be displayed publicly but which over the years have gained relevance and provide the possibility of initiating a critical reading of our past and also, as a consequence, of our present. The archives emphasise biographical, emotional and controversial topics, and through them a series of stories is presented here which aims to broaden the idea of history in general and of this factory in particular.
All the members of the group have participated in the selection, organisation and presentation of the material, but what is displayed here is just one of the thousands of possible ways to present it. They therefore invite the user to explore the proposed structure in depth but at the same time to reinterpret, reorder, reclassify, reposition and even contribute new material. Moving away from the idea of presenting a nostalgic and two-dimensional view of the past, throughout the process an attempt has been made to “direct” the story so that each document is read from a specific location, suggesting a possible angle from which to view it. However, the subject headings under which the material is organised are very broad, in an effort to expand on some of the more predictable ideas that we might expect to find within each thematic block.
This collective process is therefore proposed as a point from which to continue building not only the archive but also a community: with other agents in the city, with other ex-workers of the factory, and other people from the neighbourhood.
Let’s keep working together!
The group Smoke archivers is currently made up of: Clara Álvarez, Mariasun Arratibel, Marivi Arratibel, Pili Jauregi, Lupe Luengo, Maria Jesús Nestar, Leire San Martin, Ana Revuelta and Maite Sorozabal.