The illustrator Emma Casadevall (Barcelona, 1995) won the New Talent Mention of the Finestres Award with Lignit, a work focusing on the excluded realities of coal industrialization in Berguedà. The author aims to move away from the collective imagination of the colonies to focus on the daily, territorial, and ideological impact of mining exploitation.
“"The objects excavated at Coll de Pradell speak about the lives of the shantytown dwellers."
The project originated from the collaboration with the contemporary historian and archaeologist Laia Gallego, who wrote a thesis on the impact of industrialization on workers' housing in Berguedà. Gallego participates in annual excavations carried out at Coll de Pradell, where the miners' shacks were located. These excavations, conducted with the Passat Més Recent study group of the Universitat de Barcelona and the Associació Memòria Soterrada, have uncovered objects detailing the unsanitary and isolated conditions of the workers' housing.
The plot of Lignit centers on two real characters, Joan and Gabi, who represent the miners living in the shacks and the women who sorted the coal at the mine entrance. Furthermore, the work critiques power structures, contrasting the workers' lives with the Olano lineage, a family that grew rich through colonial trade and later invested in coal industrialization.
The comic, published by Editorial Finestres, will be officially presented on March 13 at the library in Berga and on March 20 at the La Tempesta bookstore in Balsareny.
