Breath of The City

4:56 min | 2025 | 16MM

The Johnstown Steel Plant closed in 1992.

Breath of the City moves through what remains of the mill, now operating as a scrap metal facility. A century of industrial labor echoes through the landscape. Union grievance reports, a family home shaped by generations of Slavic-immigrant steelworkers, and the world's steepest vehicular inclined plane compress a hundred years of history into the present.

Captured on hand-processed 16mm film, the haze is emblematic of a history just out of reach, reflecting the memory held by the landscape in the now afterlife of steel labor. Mamo's mother narrates, recounting growing up in the borough beside the active smoke stacks. The film follows how the descendants of steel laborers render the landscape of Western Pennsylvania.

Archival Grievance Reports, index department maps, and city maps courtesy of CSC Welding & Fabrication, Johnstown, PA.

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