The archives of Poldi steelworks contain approximately 10,000 negatives, mostly glass plates and some plastic plate negatives. These photographs document all aspects of the company development and operation – stills of manufacturing lines and products, including extensive technical documentation, foreign representations, and warehouses, as well as the social backstage of production and portraits of employees. The distinctive photographic view and aesthetic quality of some photos are also worth noticing.

The exhibition provides an opportunity to peek into the unique pictorial testimony of the Poldi archives, which has not only high documentary value in terms of the history of industrial production and social change, but it also shows the possibilities of professional curatorial and restoration work with a historical photographic material archive.

The exhibition is one of the results of the NAKI research project: “Historical photographic material – identification, documentation, interpretation, presentation, application, care, and protection in the context of fundamental types of memory institutions”.