Carlos Saladen Vargas

‘I’ve found it a hard one to read, which is a good thing because I’m fed up of looking at large format stuff.  I like square format because it’s a more difficult shape to use, it pushes you into interesting compositional work.’

‘It is dark and it takes a while to be able to understand the image.  I like the slight blur of movement, of energy spent in the labour process. It overpowers the viewer. The image is about the process of labour, as opposed to individuals taking part in it.  As the worker is almost bowing could allow the image to be read as the viewer being forced into subjugation – that labour is not ennobling but belittling, that the worker is subject to a process of which they have little control, in the way that believers are subject to the mysterious ways of their God.  What I assume are sparks in the lower right hand of the image look like blood, which is symbolic of the type of sacrifices involved in the labour process.’

‘It’s the type of image you need to come back to and look at again and again.  It’s not superficial in other words.’