Let's start with a quick overview. What i call Odomez is in fact the name of the town where this abandoned factory is located. Odomez exists since the 12th century, but only grew bigger when the factory opened at the beginning of the 20th century. I'm still missing some infos, but here's what i gathered. It's a small town, about a thousand inhabitants, located in the north of France, just near the Belgian border, about 50km from the nearest metropol, Lille, and 20km from Valenciennes, where my parents live and i spent most of my childhood.
The factory was producing synthetic textile out of chemical processes. It spreads over 7 hectares of land, and used to employ about 1200 workers at its peak. More precisely, it's located on the shore of the local big river, the Escaut, which is know for its barges and "chemins de halage", and, more recently, its pollution.
The factory closed its doors for good in 1962, and remained a virgin land from that time on... until twenty years later, twenty years ago, an Emmaüs community got to occupy about a half of the buildings of the site. Guy Gillet, who founded the community, was then a friend of the proprietor of the site.
I don't know how much is known about the Emmaüs Communities outside France, so i'll go with a little intro about it. It's a charity organisation created by l'Abbé Pierre in the early fifties, independant from the state welfare. These communities basically provide a place where to live to people in need, in exchange for their work. They gather stuff from your attics for free, and sells them inside the former industrial buildings. Half of the money goes to diverse charity plans. Twice a week, people from the cities around come, either looking for low-priced necessities or for lost treasures... Emmaüs Communities are linked with the industrial landscapes and architectural patrimony, because very often, these abandoned sites are the only places where they can get a roof for free (if you read french, there's more info on their website : http://www.compagnonsduhainaut.org/notre%20histoire.html).
That's just how Aurélie and I discovered the place. Went to "Emmaüs" (i use quotation marks because Odomez's community is now independant from the Emmaüs organisation, but still is usually named the same), about a year and a half ago, and stumbled upon this wonderful land of buildings and jungle intertwined... There's a lot of aspects to it, but the community intervenes even inside the abandoned buildings too, throwing away tons of stuff they won't be selling in the empty rooms of the former factory. It's a really impressive process and a fascinating gesture, i think. Some of these rooms are filled with things thrown away, either by the community or by the people living in the houses of what once was the "cité ouvrière" of the factory. These people, though now officially living outside the factory zone, still play a very singular role on it. They live inside what were the houses of the workers. They also have a strange relationship with the water station that is located just between their houses and the buildings. They, very often, throw away their stuff and waste there, down in the dark water.
We got in touch personnally with the Compagnons only recently, when the destruction started. We couldn't come unnoticed anymore, because they have been chosen by the heads of the destruction project to be some kind of nightwatchers. Usually, when a destruction occur, there is always a nightwatcher, and all hope to get inside is gone. But luckily, in fact, the Compagnons are just as sad as us to see the building go away, and they let us go as we please on the site, in exchange for some photo prints for their archives. After all, they've been living here for more than 20 years.
It definitly changed our way of perceiving the whole site, but it's not bad. Less magic, less strange, more human, more about memory, remembering. We used to stay away from historical informations, intentionnally, to keep the strange magic awake, but we can't do that anymore. It's still strange in another way though. It's like we were nostalgic of a time and place where we never have been. I guess somebody has to mourn and remember, and since, to my knowledge, nobody of those of used to work here are still present, why not us ?
I feel this situation really points out how this heavily industrialised region is not at all in harmony with it's own past and memory. Most of the people here feel it's a good thing that all these factories (not only Odomez', but lots of others around) get broken down without any effort or any remembrance. Medias tend to show chemical industries and wastes problems as just bad memories, as things we ought to get rid of. And unfortunately that's just how it is seen i feel. North of France is a highly polluted region, and is bound to have a schizophrenic relationship with its land as long as the medias will only use the idea of pollution as a nightmare.
Yesterday, with Guy, founder of the Compagnons, we were looking at some of the pictures we took so far. He told us that when the Compagnons came over here, they dug a pond for them to relax around and fish a bit. And he said that they had to wait a few weeks before putting the water in it, because when they had turned the ground over, there was a hanging smell of ammonia in the air for days. It was just under one of the tanks used by the factory. Eventually, their put the water, and the fishes did not grew mutant. I think even just the way the vegetation grew wild is a proof that the notion of pollution is relative of a human point of view. On a more general basis about this problem, there is still a debate now, about the Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl. Some reports tend to point out the problems created by the radioactivity, whereas some others show it as an independently created wildlife reserve (Przewalski's Horses, an endangered specie, breed there). Near Odomez, it is know that a rare specie of carnivorous plant is growing, the Drosera.
Before we got outside, Guy also handed us this old image of the factory when it was in activity. It's fascinating to discover buildings that we didn't even thought they existed.
This time, the workers were there, busy at removing the asbesots, so there was no way we were going to go inside this time. Just walking around is already a favor from them, though they are not unfriendly, "just doing their job" i guess...
Aurélie sat down and started drawing for her new project of a mind map. Meanwhile, i went to stalk a part of the area we never explored, because of its heavy vegetation.
I was struck. I stumbled upon one of the old doors of the factory zone, which is still surrounded by a concrete fence. An old, rusted brown iron door that once was a secondary (i think) entrance. I guess workers used to go through that gate.
As i walked a bit further along the fence, i find myself just underneath one of the caretaker's houses. It was impressive, because i really wasn't expecting discovering a new building after all this time. What's even more strange is that i first passed by it without noticing, and then only smelled that chemical smell that floats around some parts of the factory area. There was some barrels beside the walls of the empty house - maybe that was it. I turned back, and saw the house. It's small, two rooms, there used to be a first floor, but there's no floor left, and no roof either. Just the remnants of the fireplace, and the stairs going down the flooded basement. And only one strange inhabitant left...
It's quiet and isolated, so i think we might well be back there to record some stuff live this time, one thing the stress of being inside these odd and forbidden buildings never allowed us to do.
All of this is a bit blurry. I should have started writing sooner, but will try to make up for the delay.
No comments:
Post a Comment