The point of departure in Lin Gerkman's project "First Snow" is a disused quarry in the outer suburbs of Ljubljana, which formerly produced asphalt for a road construction company. The quarry began operating in its modern industrial form in the 1930s, although the area is thought to have been used for similar purposes for centuries. From the early 1980s onwards, the site was the subject of a number of unsuccessful redevelopment attempts, until the construction company succumbed to the depletion of assets by the management and a bad bank took ownership of the property.

Most of the buildings of the industrial plant have since been demolished. The central part is being used as a dumping ground for construction waste, while other parts of the area have been overgrown by weeds or have become part of public space.

By combining found photographs, archival documents, letters, minutes of meetings, online posts, professional publications, technical samples, found objects and my own photographs of the material traces in the landscape, I am exploring the social and environmental consequences of the transition from a socialist economy with workers’ self-management to a market economy, favouring individual actors who rapidly accumulate capital. Through the project, I map the period of political and economic transition through the imprints that have been left on the economy, the lives of workers and on the environment.