I Want To Go To There, Part 2: Sloss Furnaces

From the front page of its website, Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark in Birmingham, Alabama doesn't look too promising in terms of progressive approaches to industrial and working history. "Sloss Furnaces with its web of pipes and tall smokestacks offers us a glimpse into the great industrial past of the South and our nation [emphasis mine]," it promises. Just another early 20th century iron plant/museum trumpeting an uncritical, impersonal view of the disconnected past?

No! Turns out, there's a good deal more interesting, experimental, and thoughtful stuff going on here. Or, at least, that's what I gather from their website and from the one person I know who's been there.

Sloss Furnace. Wikipedia.

Exhibit A: Painful Pasts
In telling the "Sloss Story," the museum appears not to shy away from discussion of rigid workforce segregation, as well as an exploration of the role of convict labor. This mitigates the heroism of a "great industrial past." I would, however, be interested in learning more about individual stories and what it was like to work there during different eras. Hmm, perhaps I need to actually go to Alabama to get this.

Exhibit B: Metal Arts
I think this is really neat. Sloss runs an extensive metal arts program, including courses, open studio access, outreach and education, and a youth apprenticeship program:

Sloss’s Metal Arts program is rooted in Birmingham’s historic connection to iron and steel. The city owes its existence to these metals and to the forming and processing industries that grew up around them. Although such industries are no longer the dominant forces they once were, they are still an important part of the city’s economic life and offer tremendous resources for the production of metal sculpture.

Instead of trying to recreate, resurrect, or simply mourn the industrial past, the Metal Arts program builds on it in new, (literally) creative, often fiery directions. It maintains a tangible human connection to the past, while injecting new life to a community and an old industrial site. Enjoy, below, some photos from the 2009 National Conference on Cast Iron Art, held at Sloss.


National Conference on Cast Iron Art 2009. Sloss Furnace.



Anyone wish the NEMA conference was a little more like this?

National Conference on Cast Iron Art 2009. Sloss Furnace.

I'm excited about the possibilities inherent in adapting historic work processes into creative, community-based artistic ventures like this one.