DisFigurements

DisFigurements focuses on Companhia União Fabril (CUF) industrial park of Lisbon. From 1875 until the company was nationalised as a result of the Carnation revolution in 1974, CUF was the largest corporation in Portugal, exporting products worldwide an employing 10 000 people. CUF utilised resources from throughout the Portuguese colonies producing a diverse range of goods from cement and petrochemicals to textiles and metallurgy. From the 1980’s the company slipped into decline and became largely abandoned. Now the area is redefining itself. Having access to restricted areas where the old brutalist remains of the CUF empire stand Dudek photographed crumbling concrete structures, vast empty and alien landscapes of the now decontaminated pyrite fields. The works depict the unknown formless fluids estranged from its matter. Photographed out of its contextual scale, the series creates new landscapes, unknown and yet to be told worlds.