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After the Zvečevo exhibition, dedicated to the production of chocolate, the City Museum of Rijeka continued to host exhibitions dedicated to the history of industrial production in Croatia. Summer of 2024 is a good time for a fishing story. This one presents the exhibition Plavica, Cres Fish Processing Factory. It was prepared by the Museum of Cres in cooperation with the Institute of Culture and Memory Studies of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Launched in 1896, the Factory operated for about a hundred years, being one of two local industrial plants (the other being a shipyard). It provided income for workers and placement of catches to local fishermen. This left a mark on the lives of many inhabitants of Cres, as well as workers from the mainland, who came to the island and often stayed there permanently. As the author Iva Kosmos said at the opening of the exhibition, this mobility brought them not only a risky cultural, but also a positive existential shift. Permanent work and security meant a lot, with socially guaranteed protection of workers’ dignity. Another author of the exhibition, Inge Solis, emphasized that the Factory mostly employed a female workforce, performing the most difficult tasks, unlike the male, to which the managerial positions belonged. That is why the Factory history is an impressive story of hard women’s work. A large part of the fish was preserved by salting, which was a seasonal job depending on the amount of oily fish caught. It was done exclusively by hand. Plavica has gone through different phases over time. Some phases were financially successful, some were not, and it operated until 1997, when Croatian privatization managed to destroy yet another industry. In addition to the exhibition, lectures on fish processing on the eastern Adriatic coast are to be organized, as well as fish salting workshops and workshops for children.

The exhibition is open in “The Cube” building from July 18 to August 23, 2024.

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