Men's Work (?) – Heavy Duty Vehicle Maintenance
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The global economy is dependent on heavy duty vehicles. They move all types of product from producers to consumers, from city to village, from country to country, crossing borders and continents. The heavy duty vehicles that maintain our western lifestyles and that we take for granted are fuelled by non-renewable energy that we can no longer take for granted. In twenty years’, time these heavy duty vehicles with their internal combustion engine will be relegated to the scrap yard and museum. In the meantime, these essential vehicles with their internal combustion engines need maintenance. People need to be trained as mechanics and maintenance engineers to keep the wheels of these vehicles moving.
As I took these photos of these mechanics and maintenance engineers at work I was aware that were all men - all of them on this occasion. Women, it would seem, are not drawn to this area of work. However, this may change with the onset of electric vehicles which will bring about new work practices. Though these images are straight documentary images of men doing what is considered unremarkable work, in time they will be considered images from another epoch, as different as the age of the horse and cart is from our current epoch.
Chris Reid 2019
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