Sagunt is going to become the most important industrial hub in the Mediterranean. It's not an exaggeration. For years, the city has begun a process of hosting industries of all types with the offer of industrial land promoted by the Generalitat Valenciana. A process that is now consolidated with Seat Volkswagen's decision to install its first gigafactory here, which will provide direct employment to 3,000 people and indirect employment to more than 12,000; with a direct investment of 7,000 million euros.
The decision means consolidating Sagunt as the first industrial hub in the Mediterranean, as well as a key logistics hub in Spain and Europe. It is also an industry of the future, that of sustainable mobility, which implies promoting the motor sector in the Valencian Community, represented mainly by the Ford plant in Almussafes. Sagunt is being resurrected, in the business and industrial sense of the word; after forty years of hard economic and social sacrifice.
But the city's history has not been forgotten. Well, Sagunt went into depression due to the industrial reconversion of the 80s in Spain, with the closure of its Blast Furnaces. The same steel and iron factories that made it a reference for heavy industry in Spain since the beginning of the 20th century. All that disappeared in 1984; leaving thousands of workers unemployed and, what is worse, seriously scarring Sagunt with a social and economic wound that ended up deteriorating the area known as Port de Sagunt; the city that was created around the factories. It was a decision by the socialist government of Felipe González and an attempt was made to alleviate it with early retirement and relocation of workers.
The College Major Rector Peset of Valencia opens tomorrow the exhibition 'The Battle of Sagunto: Social Struggle and Photojournalism', a co-production of the school, the Vice-Rectorate for Culture and Society of the University of Valencia and the Council for Historical and Democratic Memory of City Hall of Sagunto. The initiative is part of the 40th anniversary of the closure of the Altos Hornos del Mediterráneo (AHM).
The exhibition recovers images of photojournalists Ana Torralva, Jesús Ciscar, José Aleixandre, Antonio Tiedra, Pepe Encinas, Enrique Tort, Tomás Bueno, Jordi Vicent, Manuel Molines, José Vicente Rodríguez and Juan José Monzó. Curated by journalist José Manuel Rambla and photographers Provi Morillas and José Aleixandre, 'The Battle of Sagunto' provides a visual review of the 430 days of struggle by AHM workers and the population of Puerto de Sagunto against the closure of the steel industry Sanguine
As reported by the UV in a statement, this is the "most important and prolonged social conflict that Spain experienced after the end of the dictatorship" and opened the cycle of 'industrial reconversions' that marked the country during the decades of the 1980s and 90s of the last century. The graphic and exhibition design has been carried out by Daniel Nebot, national design winner in 1995.
Likewise, those events are "inseparable" from the integration process in Europe and the beginnings of neoliberal globalization. In this sense, the exhibition aims to be an "invitation to reflection" on the current post-industrial society, the crisis of working-class identities, as well as the role of photojournalism and documentary photography in the new post-photographic reality.
The exhibition is divided into five thematic blocks. The first of them, 'The factory', presents the origins of the steel industry and its symbiosis with the 'factory town' of Puerto de Sagunto, based on a series of photographs about work culture and worker identity.
The next block, 'The resistance', approaches the formulas of organization and popular mobilization that were developed during all these months of struggle; in some cases heirs of the tradition of the labor movement and in other cases adapting to the needs of the moment, such as the general assemblies of the people and the collection of signatures throughout Spain, as well as the involvement in the protest of other groups such as the young people or women, whose role in the conflict was highlighted.
The block 'The barricades' addresses the political dimension of the conflict, "first great challenge" in the relations between the new Generalitat and the government of Felipe González, as well as the "clash" between the popular movement and the State, with "serious clashes " between workers and police that caused numerous injuries, one of them due to a gunshot wound, or episodes such as the siege of the Sagunt police station.
The fourth block, 'Under the media spotlight', presents the presence of the photojournalist during the conflict, its impact on the media, which went beyond the national level, the debate on the role of the press and the experiences of community journalism linked to the mobilization that emerged, like the free radio Radio Unidad. The exhibition ends with an 'Epilogue' that shows the end of the struggle and the subsequent dismantling of the Saguntine steel industry.
This is the third exhibition hosted by the Rector Peset College of the University of Valencia, which has as its main theme the industrial heritage and the memory of the labor movement in Puerto de Sagunto. In 2000 the exhibition 'Reconversion and Revolution' took place with photographs by Manuel Rodríguez Velo and curated by Gonzalo Montiel and Ximo Revert, in 2012 the exhibition 'Young workers in Paradise' in which Miguel Ángel Martín and Gonzalo Montiel carried out the work of curated.
As an activity prior to the inauguration, at 12:30 p.m., a round table will take place in which some of the photographers who covered the conflict will participate, who will reflect on their experiences in those years and the current situation of photojournalism. The exhibition 'The Battle of Sagunt' can be visited at the Rector Peset Residence Hall until May 26 and will travel next October to Sagunto, where it will remain until the end of the year.
The exhibition will be inaugurated on April 25 by Ester Alba Pagan, vice-rector of Culture and Society of the UV; Darío Moreno, mayor of Sagunto; Roberto Rovira, councilor of Historic and Democratic Memory and the director of the Colegio Mayor Rector Peset of the UV, Carles Xavier López Benedí, as well as the photographers gathered at the exhibition.
