Oriol Clavera

Photographer
    
The last mine
Location: Barcelona, Catalonia
Nationality: Catalan
Biography: Born in Barcelona (1978), photographer Oriol Clavera is a freelance photographer focused on photojournalism, travel, anthroplogy and culture, who combines editorial assignments with documentary projects.  Oriol's work has been... MORE
Public Story
The last mine
Copyright Oriol Clavera 2024
Updated Feb 2013
Location Seròs
Topics Abandonment, Capitalism, Discrimination/Minority, Documentary, Editorial, Environment, Globalization, Human Rights, Industrial, Landscape, Photography, photojournalism, Portraiture, Workers' Rights

March 2011. Manol, Jesús, Benjamí and Juan Antonio are the last workers at the Separada Canota mine. The Minera del Bajo Segre mining company, located in Catalonia's last coal region, has been subject to closure. In a move decided upon in some office in some spanish Ministry, the grants they used to receive to carry out the activity have stopped and, after a labour force adjustment plan (collective redundancy), of the previous thirty workers only these four remain.

For over two years they have been going to the mine each day, unpaid, as the facilities have gradually got worse. Upset and waiting are daily occurrences for these four miners looking for a solution for an increasingly irreversible situation.

The neglected state of the mine demonstrates the end of the coal industry in Catalonia. Meanwhile, the miners are engaged in their own fight against oblivion.

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