Silver Creek

Since the 1920s the Belgian factory Gevaert accidentally disposed tons of silver as a by-product of the production of photographic film. This outflow ended up in a creek in Antwerp (Belgium). For its sludge coloured black by the ­silver, the creek was popularly called Zilverbeek (Silver Creek in Dutch).

The myth starts in 1927 when a tool maker working at the factory ­realized the kind of fortune the factory was washing away on a daily basis. The man invented a system to recover the silver from the sludge in the creek.

He secretly drained the stream, and transported the dried sludge to a local metallurgical plant where the silver was extracted. The man recovered up to half a ton of silver a year, more than enough for a generous salary. One year later the man quit his job at the factory, as his side business was already more profitable.

This story fascinated Lucas Leffler (BE), who turned himself into a researcher. He found archive material, newspaper clippings and historical documents, and photographed the factory and the creek. And then, finally, he took mud from the bottom of the creek, trying to find traces of silver, just like the pioneer before him.

The presented works are the results of different experimental printing processes developed while doing research on this story. Photographs of the creek are printed in the darkroom with a technique where the mud taken from the creek is mixed with silver salts. Industrial images from the archive of the factory are printed on silver-gelatine paper and solarized. Architecture images of the factory are printed with uv inks on steel plates.