Series consists of a selection of images from Palu's "Cathedrals of the North" which depict historic hard rock mine sites, many of which have been torn down or since declared National Historic Sites, in communities across Northern Ontario and Quebec.
From the Introduction to Industrial Cathedrals of the North.
"For five years photographer Louie Palu of Toronto visited historic mine sites, many of which have been torn down or since declared National Historic Sites to photograph the headframes of hard rock mines in communities across Northern Ontario and Quebec. This collection documents the architectural landscape of mines and mining towns with a photographic style similar to the Farm Security Administration photographs taken during the Depression of the 1930s. Palu's treatment of geometric form discovered in architecture shares the modern vision of early modernists such as Edward Weston, Williard VanDyke and Ansel Adams early industrial work.
The impetus for Palu's documentation of mines, and miners in Canada came from meeting some of his first miners in 1991. His father had a geologist friend who suggested to Palu that he might want to photograph the miners. The men and the underworld almost religious symbolism of the mines, which he invokes in some of his underground shots, fascinated Palu. He also became rapt with the above ground industrial ruins that peppered the Northern Ontario and Quebec landscapes. Calling the headframes Industrial Cathedrals Palu set out driving across vast territories of land in search of the crumbling footprint of the mining industry the residue of an industry and lives devoted to pulling minerals from the ground.
Using a medium format camera, Palu took shots of defunct and operational mining headframes (the multisory structures that house the elevator at the head of the mine shaft) some of which have disappeared from the landscape since the project began in 1993. These photographs document the industrial remains of the mining legacy the physical ruins of the mineral industry on which much of Canada's economy was built. As the headframes disappear, Palu's photographs serve as proof to their very existence.
For some, the mining headframes of the north have the same eerie hold as historic battlefields. These imposing towers, each with their own unique design, have become metaphors for both an industry and a culture. Northerners love to sketch, paint and photograph headframes. The architecture is mimicked throughout mining country, whether it's the design of a funeral home in Kirkland Lake or a tourist Centre in Val d'Or there is a tendency to acknowledge, pay homage to the dominant architectural symbol of hardrock mining."
