EVA FÀBREGAS
Barcelona, Spain, 1988
Received the Fundación Botín Art Grant in 2010

1986-1937 (Päivölä). Päivölä: 1939. Tipo ROT. Complejo EKA. Sunilantie 9, Sunila, Kotka, Finlandia, 2011
Inkjet print on archival paper
3 Photographs 53 x 80 cm. ea.
Gift of the artist, 2012

In 1936, the famed Finnish architect Alvar Aalto designed Sunila, an industrial compound that included housing for the employees of a pulp factory in the north of Finland. Sunila has been regarded as an outstanding example of the period’s socially-driven construction and of the possibilities and achievements of building technology. Over the course of time, the factory closed and the profile of the inhabitants of the “forest town” changed.

Eva Fàbregas traveled to Finland to research the history of the project and produced a series of works reflecting upon the evolution of what was once a modernist utopia. Belonging to this body of work, these three photographs document the housing part of the compound, visually tracking the changes introduced by the new inhabitants, who gradually adapted their dwellings to their contemporary lifestyle, while at once trying to capture the traces of a bygone era.