By Ferran Pons Raga. Published by MNACTEC, 2024.
In the early 20th century, La Matussière embarked on an industrial project to market paper pulp produced in the village of Salau, in the district of Arieja, taking advantage of the huge forestry resources of the fir woods of Bonabé, on the banks of the Isil and Alós, in Pallars Sobirà. To fulfil this ambition, a nine-kilometre cable car was needed, supported by ninety-one pylons, crossing the Salau Pass (2,057 metres) to carry tonnes of wood from this corner of the Pyrenees. Despite prior technical and bureaucratic barriers, the project was successfully completed, before various factors led it to be shut down two decades later.
Today, the traces of the La Matussière route on both sides of the border can be made out among the ruins. This book takes the landscape and its preservation as the two key analytical focal points for a more in-depth study of La Matussière and its industrial legacy. The title, "What to Do with the Ruins of La Matussière?", does not raise this question in literal terms, but to prompt us to consider how we should showcase these industrial traces, allowing us to explain this land in the Pyrenees in terms of the past, present and future, and why and for whom they should be made more visible.
