Sebastião Salgado: Workers; an Archaeology of the Industrial Age

Sebastião Salgado’s photo book classic Workers. An Archaeology of the Industrial Age (first published in 1993) pays tribute to the time-honored tradition of manual labor in the new millennium when machines and computers replace human workers throughout the globe. With images of striking beauty and integrity, Salgado composes a visual elegy for the working men and women, whose indomitable spirit has prevailed over the harshest of conditions to achieve a singular grace.

More than those of any other living photographer, Sebastião Salgado’s images of the world’s poor stand in tribute to the human condition. Salgado defines his work as “militant photography”, dedicated to “the best comprehension of human being”; over the decades he has bestowed great dignity on the most isolated and neglected among us — from famine-stricken refugees in the Sahel to the indigenous peoples of South America.